Interview with Cherie Lee

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Linda Andrews

What prompted you to write a children’s book with a fairy?
Fairy tales were favorite stories for me as a child. I remember making up my own but never writing them down. Today, I love to create unexpected story twists whenever possible. This tale is based on the adage, be careful what you wish for. Genies generally are the ones to grant wishes, so playing the what if game brought a fairy as a character. A determined child became the other story character who focused on getting his three wishes granted.
Can you tell us a little bit about your latest release?
This is my first children’s book. It was released in 2010 by my publisher, Allison Books, LLC, a small publisher. Being offered a contract in 2007 for this story was a big achievement to me. It was hard to wait for the artwork to be completed, but I’m very pleased with the results. The original drawings really enhance this fantasy and give a child something delightful to view whether the story is read to them or they read it for themselves.
Do you plot your stories out or do you just start writing?
Hmm, this is a hard one to answer for me. Sometimes I start writing and see what happens while other times I plot. This tale is a combination. I wrote about the fairy being stalked and captured, then I plotted for the three wishes.
What was the funniest thing you learned about your hero/heroine from writing their story?
That Roy wanted a dog, got a puppy, and then learned the responsibility that came with pet ownership. I chuckled writing this part since it made me think about pets in my childhood and some of the messes they made that my mother insisted I clean up.
Which of your characters is most like you and which is least like you?
The stubbornness of the fairy is most like me while Roy is a reflection of many childhood memories and wishes.
Can you describe your office or where you normally write?
Since I hate cooking and avoid it as much as possible, I made the dining room my office. Bookcases (three of them) line the walls along with two jammed packed file cabinets. My desk sits in front of a window that allows me to see my backyard if I peek beside my monitor. Otherwise, it’s a wonderful view of my neighbor’s roof and refrigeration unit. That’s a good thing to keep me focused on my writing.
Which came first the plot or the characters?
Almost all of my stories start with characters. This might be due to all the people watching I love to do when shopping, driving, or walking. It is fun to create worlds and jobs for others, especially in a science fiction/fantasy way.
What is one unusual problem you encountered writing for children versus adults?
Adult writing includes vivid descriptions in words while children’s picture books have little to no descriptions in words to allow the artwork to tell that part of the story. The only description of the fairy states she is sparkly. The artwork shows what she wears and what she looks like.
What is the wackiest thing that’s ever happened to you since you started
writing?
Being asked meet with two of MySpace friends came as a big surprise. The first one lived in California and knew she’d be in Arizona for Christmas with her family and with her in-laws. We arranged a meeting and had a wonderful time visiting. She had just begun writing and made me feel very special with what information I gave her from my writing attempts.
The second person lives in the valley and wished to take my husband and myself out to a steak restaurant for a meeting. It was lots of fun with good food. We maintain a friendship through emails and a few get-togethers when we can. We even co-authored a horror story which resulted in an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest Fifth Popular contest for our story, A Season of Darkness.
Since you are published in fiction and non-fiction, do you find one easier
to write than the other?
Non-fiction generally has desired outcomes along with certain rules or detailed guidelines to follow. That can make it easier sometimes, but not always. Procrastination is my biggest problem no matter what I write. However, writing articles for Sun Life magazine allowed me to interview people, write assigned articles, and to offer articles not assigned. One of those non-assigned articles, Fly With the Wind was accepted for publication. When the magazine owner/publisher informed me it was the best one I had ever written, I entered it into a Writer’s Digest published magazine article and won Honorable Mention. That was the first award I’d ever received for any of my writing. It was a fun one about kites based on history of their usage throughout history.
Whenever I can combine any history with anything I write, I love it. Past history can fuel the beginnings for future stories, too.
Bio:
After taking a voluntary layoff in 2002, Cherie Lee turned to writing. She lets curiosity guide her to write tall tales. Writing is wonderful since it leaves less time for housework, cooking, and yard work. After receiving an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest Fifth Popular Fiction contest for, A Season of Darkness she is inspired to keep writing. Her hobbies are reading, hiking and photography. She is busy polishing two more children picture books and starting two science fiction/fantasy stories for adults.

Websites: http://www.myspace.com/cherannlee or http://www.facebook.com.cherie.lee2

Member in: Valley of the Sun RWA (VOS), Arizona Authors Association (AZ Authors), Society of Children’s Books Writer’s and Illustrators (SCBWI); West Valley Authors Association

The book is listed on amazon.com:

and on Publisher’s website:
http://www.allisonbooks.com

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Music and writing, take two

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Linda Andrews

I received an MP3 player for Christmas, and I love it. I have all my music on it and can listen to it whenever I want. The problem is: I have all my music on it.

Allow me to explain. I love music and each song on my Sansa means something to me. The problem is these songs don’t necessarily mean anything to the story I’m writing. This in turn distracts my brain from focusing  on the story. It is kind of hard to write a fight scene when I’m listening to Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Kind of a mood killer.

This wasn’t a problem before because my player only held 1 GB, so some songs had to go in order for new ones to fit. Not so with my 8 GB beauty.

Fortunately the makers of my MP3 player have added a feature that I hadn’t used before–Playlists. Yes, I can still keep all my music on one player, but I can divide it up and only play the music to write by when I’m writing and all the others while I’m working out or pulling weeds etc.

So… My Christmas music will remain on the Christmas Music playlist, but Goodbye to You by Patty Smythe will go on my writing playlist. I’ll be cordoning off the love songs and sticking with angry chick music, breakup songs and songs about loss, confusion and getting hurt. And since at the end things will get better, I’ll have to add a few about hope.

Now all I have to do is sort those 516 songs and maybe add a few more that will fit the theme of the book–which is about changes.

Ahh, which reminds me of David Bowie’s classic song.

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Dependent Clauses and Commas

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Linda Andrews

While beginning my next foray into the world of commas, I encoutered the world of dependent clauses. What is a dependent clause? I thought I knew, but just to be sure I looked it up. A dependent clause (also called a subordinate clause) is a group of words that conatin a subject and verb but are not a complete sentence. In other words, a reader expects more to come. You may recognize them as sentence fragments.

Example: Because the moon rose.
Example: Before the world turns on its axis.

After reading the two examples, you should be asking what happens next. That’s a dependent clause. It is interesting to note that if I eliminated the first word in each sentence I would have a complete sentence.

Example: The moon rose.
Example: The world turns on its axis.

But I digress. One nifty way to recognize dependent clauses is by a dependent word marker. They include: After, although, as, as if, because, before, even if, even though, if, in order to (that), once, provided that, rather than, so that, since, than, that, though, unless, until, whatever, when, whenever, whether, while, whereas, wherever, and why.

Dependent clauses can function as relative pronouns. These too have key words: That, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whose, whosoever, whomever.

So where does the comma magic come in? When the dependent clause is at the beginning of a sentence, you use a comma.

Example: Unless it rains, we are going hiking on Friday.

Oddly enough, a comma is not necessary when the dependent clause is at the end of a sentence.

Example: I ordered the Pattymelt because they were out of sourdough bread.

If the dependent clause is a relative pronoun, the rules get a little hinkey. Why? Well, you must decide if clause is essential or nonessential. If the clause is essential than you don’t need a comma.

Example: I tossed the rest of my French fries to the bird who was roosting nearby.

Apparently the clause is essential because bird is a general noun, and the clause specifies which one. If the noun is specific, a comma is needed because the information is no longer as important (nonessential).

Example: I tossed the rest of my French fries to Birdbrain, who was roosting nearby.

Birdbrain specifies which specific bird and the dependent is not really necessary to identify it. NOTE: I’ve also read where if the information revealed is not relevant to the sentence to use commas. This made my head ache because why would you include information not relevant to the sentence?

So now we come to more comma magic. As long you understand essential and nonessential clauses, this should be easy. If the essential clause is buried in the sentence, you do not need a comma.

Example: Because the storm caught them unprepared, the couple who were picnicing by the river wished they had brought an umbrella.

If the nonessential clause is buried in the sentence, you will set the clause off with commas.

Example: Because the storm caught them unprepared, Bernice and Jack, who were picnicing by the river, wished they had brought an umbrella.

Notice how cleverly I used two dependent clauses? By George I think I’ve got it!

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Getting motivated to write

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Linda Andrews

Usually writing the beginning of a story is easy. Usually, I’m not recovering from the flu and I can focus.

Okay that’s a poor excuse. The fact is I’m not committed to my current book. It isn’t that I don’t want to write it. It’s more like, I’m moving back to a series that I know is destined for a small press and hence small money. I’m not sure why I’ve focused on the small money thing. I’ve always written the stories that I’ve wanted to read, but somewhere inside my head is a voice telling me that I’m not a real author unless I make x amount of dollars off of a book.

Part of this comes from writers groups. SFWA, RWA and a bunch of other writers groups don’t consider you a professional unless you’ve earned x amount of dollars or been published with their approved publishers. While part of me rants against such an arbitrary standard, I do recognize the difference between someone who is just starting out and someone who has been writing for years. I know this is also an attempt to weed out those who think about writing a book and dream about becoming an author, yet who will never finish writing a book.
But I really resent being told I’m not a real author.
Then I remember what my mother told me: No one can make you feel bad without your permission.
I can’t believe I let a stranger get to me and shake my confidence. I am an excellent writer. I have the reviews to prove it.
And I have the faith in myself and my writing to believe it.
As for being published by a small press, maybe I won’t be able to retire, but I am getting my work out there. The presses are professional, the editing is well done and rigorous and my editors believe in my stories. That’s a powerful validation.
So now comes the second snafu to my writing. Outside events. Yes the flu really did a number on my brain and energy levels, but I’m recovered now. What tanked my creativity levels this last weekend was emotional maelstrom at home. The cause: a truck plowed through our block fences and almost came to a stop inside our pool house.
Ironically, I was watching a war movie (Passchendaele) at the time, so at first I thought the boom was part of the soundtrack.
Then I realized the boom had come from the backyard.
I opened the sliding doors from my master bedroom and couldn’t see much beyond the thick smoke (later identified as concrete dust) and the red glow I thought must be fire. Thinking a transformer blew, I shut the door, grabbed my cell and walked out the front door. My oldest met me at the front door and told me someone had driven into our backyard.
The neighbors were out but no one had gone to see if the driver was all right. Thankfully, the driver wasn’t hurt much beyond bruises and scratches. I am extremely thankful that he didn’t drive into our diving pool which was empty at the time. That would have been a ten foot drop and his air bags didn’t deploy. So the only damage was to our two brick walls (multiple sections), the cool decking and to the pool house, which had the glass broken out of the French doors and chunks of bricks embedded in the siding. Of course, I have bricks in the pool and spa, so no telling if there’s damage there and we can’t clean up until the insurance comes on Tuesday.
We were lucky, and I am thankful.
But my youngest who suffers from severe anxiety had a hard time sleeping in her bed (her room is near the pool house, and she was sure some car was going to drive into her bedroom and kill her). Talking about her fears and having her take the pictures of the damage to take some of the power away from her imagination helped. She managed to settle down a mere half an hour last night which is a big improvement over the two plus hours on Thursday.
Writing this helped me. Who knows maybe I’ll use it in a story some day. And now that we’re back to normal (although the property isn’t), I can focus on my writing.
Or I hope so.
I’ll keep you posted.

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Organization

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Linda Andrews

At last week’s book signing at the Dog Earred Pages, I met a woman who wrote a book on organizing. “Ah, so you wrote a horror novel,” I quipped.

She kindly laughed and replied that, “some people seem to think so.”

Aside from being under the influence of cold medecine, I’m not sure why I said what I did. I’m am an organized person, most of the time. My work space and lab bench are neat and clean. My files and folders clearly labeled, filed and sorted. I know where everything is.

The same is mostly true of my home. Okay, it’s somewhat dusty but things are where I want them. But then again I have three children and a husband who rearrange things and rarely put things back. So some latitude must be given.

However, I’m not as organized in my writing as I’d like. I’m getting better, I’m just not there. My system is this, I buy notebooks/composition notebooks at the beginning of the year when all those back to school sales are on. I use one for my books, I cut out pictures, make notes, jot down ideas etc.

But they are by no means organized. I have ideas for stories in pages of characters for one WIP, random notes from shows I’ve watched on other pages and lecture and world building notes on yet more pages. Before you condemn me, please know this is a big step up from note cards and sticky notes. I’m still finding those from books I wrote 13 years ago.

Part of me resists the urge to get better organized. Writing is a creative outlet and organizing might make it a bit too much like work. Still, I might need to tweak my style just a bit. Hey, why not, my writing style has evolved–my tracking should too. But so as not to shock my system too much, I’ll keep it simple. I will have one for story ideas only. Another book will be for lecture notes, and randam research facts. Since I write in series, I’ll have one book per series with no other doodles inside. And I’ll add tabs to the notebooks so I’ll have sections devoted to characters, locations, food, etc.

I think I can handle that.

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Than vs Then

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Linda Andrews

Instead of continuing my entries on commas, I’ve decided to give the little gray cells a break and do something relatively easy. I’m not sure why I’ve always confused than and then. Maybe it’s because they sound the same, but it’s probably because I use then so much more than I use than that I just got in a habit of typing the ‘e’ instead of ‘a.’

So, I looked it up and distilled what I learned to the simplest terms. Than is a conjunction for comparson/contrast and then is an adverb, noun/pronoun, and adjective for time and logic.

I’m younger than my sisters. Comparison

I’m the oldest then my brother and baby sister. Order or sequence.

Mrs. Hurd is stricter than Mrs. White. Contrast.

Tonight, I must cook dinner and wash the dishes then I can watch TV. Time sequence

That’s simple. And someone made it even easier by saying than has an ‘a’ in it like comparison/contrast, while then has an ‘e’ like in time.

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The Flu

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Linda Andrews

I had a little bird,
And it’s name was Enza.
I opened the window
And in-flew-Enza.

I never get the flu vaccine. Not that I have a problem against vaccines on either religious or scientific grounds. I get my tetnanus shots ever 7 to 9 years and other assorted booster shots when needed. It’s just the flu shot tends to be a crap shoot, loaded with the bug most likely to cause trouble in a season.

And yes, I am one of those people who do get sick from the flu shot, so why get a shot that will not only cause me to get sick but might not protect me from the bug zeroing in on me.

Obviously, this is not a logic thing.

I wear my seatbelt whenever I’m in a moving car. I understand there’s a chance that wearing it could be a bad thing in case of an accident, but there’s an ever greater chance that it could save my life.

So why don’t I get the flu shot? I can function from the mild miasma, that I get with the injection. So that’s not the reason. Part of me knows, I get a greater immunity boost from getting the sickness than a shot. (NOTE: I don’t know of any hard scientific data to back that up but three out of three microbiologists I talked to agreed with me.) There’s also that fact that I am healthy and I should have no problem fending off a cold/flu.

Yeah, except for the Influenza epidemic of 1918, where the rhyme at the beggining this entry began.

In that case, the young, healthy perished. This deviated from the norm where the very young, old and compromised individuals usually are impacted the worst. Not that those individuals didn’t die. My grandmother lived through the Pandemic. The baby died; so did her father. She remembers jumping on the makeshift coffins stacked out by the curb, waiting for pick up.

And there were lots of them.

I’m still recovering from my encounter with the flu. I had a 104/37 fever for three days. I thought I’d never get warm. I’d crawl into the shower and just sit on the tile, lacking energy and having every single one of my joints hurt. My nose ran, my ears were clogged and each saw of my lugs was an effort. My temperature laughed at Tylenol and Ibuprofen but the aspirin wrangled it to 99.

Now, I’m still coughing up gunk, tissues bulge from every pocket and my ears keep popping but I’m almost back to normal. Almost because my energy levels are low and so is my creativity. I knew I wouldn’t be able to write during the flu, I barely had the energy to sit up and my thoughts were far from coherent. Still, I had hoped to start my next book on March 1st. That’s tomorrow.

Except I’m not certain what to write. Should I start the second book of the one I’m currently shopping to agents? What about a third book in a series I haven’t sold yet either? Maybe I should begin something new and fresh. Should I return to historical romance with an idea that I thought of while under the flu’s influence? Or maybe I should write that book on Atlantis that I’ve been kicking around for ages. Then there was a non fiction idea … .

Either way, tomorrow I start on my new project, I just wish I knew what it was.

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Commas Part I

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Linda Andrews

To me commas are magic grammar glitter. The editor throws them at the page, and ‘poof’ they fall into place. Having done a bit of research on them and their various rules, I decided to break it into many parts.

The first one I am very comfortable using: commas are used to separate things/verbs in a series.

Example: A triathlon is comprised of running, swimming and biking.
Example: I need to pick up milk, butter, macaroni, and cheese from the grocery store.

Simple and neat. I’m going to the store to pick up four things. I could also have written it like this:

Example: I need to pick up milk, butter, and macaroni and cheese from the grocery store.

Now, I’m only picking up three things since the macaroni and cheese can be considered one item. I know what you’re thinking–Lots of editors don’t have a problem leaving off the last comma as it doesn’t really changing the meaning. And you’re right, but I like to keep things simple. The editor can change the punctuation to her/his preferences.

Comma use #2- a comma and a conjunction connects two complete sentences. This one my word processor usually catches me on. The conjunctions in this case are: and, but, or, for, nor, yet and so.

Example: I’m going to the store, and he’s going to the movies.

‘I’m going to the store’ is a complete sentence. ‘He’s going to the movies’ is a complete sentence. Both can be written as such but an integral part of pacing is to vary sentence length. So sometimes you’ll want to join two complete sentences.

Incorrect use: The dog ran through the surf and then shook water on us.

‘Then shook water on us’ is not a complete sentence, so there would be no comma.

Those two things are easy and I should be able to remember the last one, but on reviewing this entry I think I need to look at how to use parentheses correctly.

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Kitchen sink omitted

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Linda Andrews

I’ve been surprised by the number of novels I’ve read lately that have been the kitchen sink omitted variety. You know the ones–mysterious things pop up in the middle of the book, usually of a paranormal nature.

It isn’t that I object to paranormal things. I love paranormal things. But as a reader, I feel cheated if these paranormal aren’t foreshadowed. What’s worse, is that as I writer, I see these surprises as attempts to prop up a sagging middle instead of crafting a story that can last the entire book.

Just like a good writer provides motivation for her characters actions, whether they are normal actions or odd actions, a good writer must foreshadow the events to come. If an ogre is going to pop out of the woods, the kids traipsing through it can either know stories of an ogre and dismiss them or the writer can describe the woods in such as way as to hint that something is there–a rustle of leaves, the fall of footsteps, the silence of animals, etc.

The description could create tension and suspense and the actions of the characters as they react to the woods/stories reveal bits about them. A kid that doesn’t believe in ogres wouldn’t react to the stories, but fear is contagious and most of our primitive instincts would be roused by the feel of the woods. A city kid would react differently than one used to camping. And a studious kid would react differently than the others, perhaps even noticing things the others missed.

Some people might think that foreshadowing gives too much of the story away, leaving out the surprises. Not necessarily. Many writers give red herrings and we’re all familiar with them. We hear the footsteps and the silence of the woodland animals but what steps out of the forest is an injured person, not an ogre. Or the writer infuses enough reasonable doubt into the character’s thoughts and actions that the reader believes it too–think about how many times we saw the mangled body of the slasher in a horror story only to have the corpse disappear later. Or the preconceived notions are turned on their head such as in The Sixth Sense and The Others. Both these movies use deep character POV to develop a world based on those character’s perceptions and the watcher/reader buys into it until the end.

Such is the power of characterization. In the hands of talented writers it can seamlessly carry a story through to the end, no matter how many paranormal characters pop on and off the page.

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Curse of the Vampire

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Linda Andrews

I admit that when vampires first started being written in the early 1990’s, I enjoyed them very much. I even had a vampire in my Halloween story, Some Enchanted Autumn. And even now, I do occasionally find one that I enjoy but that’s a rare thing. Very rare. Mostly, I just sigh and put the book back on the shelf. Really? Another Vampire book.

So why the protest on this obviously popular and lucrative type of book?

Part of it is the forever young motif. While I can see the appeal of never getting cancer or ill, scars signify our errors and mistakes. We learn from them and they remind us of those lessons. So without those marks, it’s doubtful anyone will remember the past and we’ll never evolve or improve ourselves or our world. (And I’m completely ignoring the fact that everyone would be in their early 20’s–if you’ve forgotten what that’s like go sit on a college campus and eavesdrop.) So what is gained from this immortality? Nothing that benefits either humans or Vamp. Oh but they’re always rich. Of course, it’s not greed. It’s the boredom of living forever that helps them acquire such wealth.

Not that they endow the arts with their largess, help spread their knowledge and experience to recreate the world for the better. They don’t really care about humanity–their food source. And this trait is certainly featured a lot. The old Vamp forgets what it’s like to be human and sees everyone as walking blood warmers–his/hers for the taking. They become evil and depraved. Rabid animals that their own kind must hunt and put down for the sake of the Vampire species. And we’re supposed to magically believe that the hero/heroine won’t degenerate into this in another century or two?

Ah but that’s where the human blood warmer comes in. She/he will save them. Given that all Vamps have some sort of Glamour how can he/she save the big, bad vamp when this magic overrides her free will? How can love without a choice to not love be true love? I understand the need for the Glamour. After all the vast majority of people don’t find themselves attracted to corpses. Right, the Vamps can turn this on and off. Sorry, I’m not buying it. They may be able to mute it but it has to be an integral part of them, after all this is part of their hunting ability and they need it to survive. It can’t completely go away. A lion’s teeth and fangs don’t disappear when he’s lounging on the Savannah.

Ignoring the whole free choice thing, we come to the increased sexual appetites. Yes I know that erotic material is all the rage and that sex sells, but this seems more like a gimmick to get a sex scene on page 50. And this seems to be done at the expense of the romance, the wooing and taking the time to get to know her and him.

But my biggest bone of contention is that the human savior becomes a vamp so they can live happily forever after. Which given that most Vamps don’t have a life span, is indeed forever unless, of course, one or the other gets killed. So here is where instead of feeling that happy, happy, joy moment–I get sad.

1-The original vamp didn’t change much. He only loves her. He still needs to eat. Humans are still food. How soon until the newbie vamp looses her humanity and becomes the next villian?

2-Given the divorce rate among humans, how can we think they’ll really stay together forever? And don’t forget the mind reading. Do you really want your significant other in your head all the time? That would become old. Quickly.

3-Lastly, and more disturbingly for me, is the acceptance of total defeat. Humans do get divorced at a high rate. So writers have given up even trying to get readers to believe that humans can love one another for the rest of their short lives. You need supernatural beings for that and what’s more you need to become one for it to last. (And no, I’m not going to talk about how some books have injected the whole Pantheon of supernatural beings now.)

I’m not sure when mortality became vilified, when our human failings stopped being something we needed to have the courage to overcome and forgive, and when love became the only virtue we possess (but not strong enough to keep us together).

Then again, maybe I’ve over thought the whole thing.

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