Raven O'Fiernan

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The Next 3 Covers: Last Friday’s Rose

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Weekly Update:

This week was another difficult week. My routines are slipping a bit and it’s been harder to get up, so that kind of affects the whole day, even if I am feeling more compfortable with the new job.  Writing focus has still been revision, which is going, but slowly.  I am  on page 61 of 339 at this time.  I did however post the next three covers on the Holly Lisle forums, so here they are for you as well.

Tell me what you think, and I’ll get the next ones up next week.  Happy writing, all!

The First 4 Covers – Three Roses

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Weekly Update:

This week was a difficult week, to be sure. I got a promotion (yay!) and this was the first week of the new job, so lots of anxiety, new-job uncertainty, feeling “stupid”, etc. And in the middle of it, I finally finished the final touches for my covers for the prequel (but more of a side story, rather than lead-in) to the Hazel series. It’s an introduction to the main character, her reasons for not being interested in romance, and to her ability to get a picture out of a trance after being around dead bodies. But, unlike the other stories in this series, it is NOT a mystery, so might not bring in readers to the series and could possibly appeal to the WRONG readers, and not appeal to the RIGHT ones. Anyway, it’s a story that can stand on its own, so I am going to publish it soon-ish (hopefully within the year) after getting more feedback on the covers and then working on the copy, and then all the administrative tasks involved in putting a book up, which are still slow-going for me since I haven’t done it much.

But that all brings me to the main point of this post:

I’d like to share these covers with you and get your thoughts. I realize they are not my best, but they will improve, and it will give you an inside look at what I’ve been working on.

Three Roses Covers

So there you have them! Please let me know your thoughts on these covers. And until next week, happy reading!

Reading Preferences #IWSG 03-03-2021

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Find out more at The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Weekly Update

So, contrary to expectations, the last week of February has been the week that I finally got into my revision, even though of course it was supposed to be my focus for the month overall. And March, I am getting back to covers, so by the time you read this, hopefully, I will have started that. I don’t have much to do with them, though, so I should still be able to get some revision in as well. I just started, but so far, the revision is going well.

I also started a new day job, so my schedule has changed, and I am planning on making more of an effort to add walking and yoga to my daily routine. We will see how it goes.

And, as this is the first Monday of the month, that means it is Insecure Writers Support Group day!

Optional Monthly Question

March 3 question – Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about your reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice?

This is a good question for March because I am also hoping to integrate more reading into my schedule, particularly at night. I have not been reading as much as I like to. But typically, it goes the other way. I used to read much more broadly than I do now. These days, I tend to default to easier reading, mostly cozy mysteries. I do write cozy mysteries, of course, but I also write in lots of other genres. And sometimes, when I read a book in a different genre, it will inspire me to write something in that genre as well.

What motivates my reading choice? I like to discover new things, but I also like to continue reading something I have started to love. It seems once I get into a series, I just want to keep reading that series. And then, I also like to read the work of other writers I know, or new writers I haven’t heard of. When I was a teacher, I tried to read the books my students read. But in general, I read pretty much everything. It just hasn’t been in the forefront of my mind lately, which is why I want to get back to it.

INSECURE WRITER’S SUPPORT GROUP

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Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh

Twitter is @TheIWSG Hashtag: #IWSG

Join in here!

IWSG Website

The awesome co-hosts for the March 3 posting of the IWSG are Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen Jacqui Murray, Chemist Ken, Victoria Marie Lees, Natalie Aguirre, and JQ Rose!

IV – The Emperor

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IV – The Emperor

So, maybe I’ve let myself go a little. I mean, a lush garden is wonderful, and I love all greenery, but the weeds are all mixed in with the plants, and it’s getting a little unmanageable. Yes, I said it, weeds. Yes, I know I always said there wasn’t such a thing. I know I said all plants were valuable, and that there were no weeds, only wildflowers. But I can kind of see your point — maybe there are some plants that want to strangle the life out of others, and it’s getting a little unbalanced with all these super-dominant plants. Maybe some kind of order would be good.

There’s also the matter of the animals. I love the deer and the rabbits, but they keep eating the plants and defecating all over. So, that’s the first step. I need to build a fence. It pains me to cut down the trees: I hear their screams as my blade whacks into their skin. But I need wood for the wall, and there isn’t enough loose wood around. It needs to be tall enough that the deer can’t jump over. After I cut the trees, I make the wood into boards and construct the fence. Obviously, I need a gate; I don’t want to imprison myself here.

When the fence surrounds the garden, and a gate allows entrance and exit, I know I need to turn my attention to the plants. I’ve been avoiding this. It was once my nature to just want to nourish them all, to just let them grow wild. But now, things have changed. It is overgrown and unruly, from my lack of discipline. While it hurt to cut down the trees, it feels just as wrong, at first, to want to shape these plants into my own image. But once I get started, I begin to find the ways to tame the wildness without oppression. And always I am rewarded, not just by the beauty of the sculpted shapes, but also by the sudden exuberance expressed by the plants. It’s as though they have been waiting for this, for someone to give them shape, purpose, structure.

Maybe they didn’t want to run wild.

When I am done, I have neatly trimmed hedges in exact geometric patterns. I have bursts of color in just the right place. Complimentary colors balancing each other: blue and orange, purple and yellow, and here and there bright red blooms against the dark green leaves. There are paths for walking and fountains for melody and stone benches for resting. Fragrant flowers are far from each other so the different smells don’t intermingle or overpower. Everything has a purpose and reason, and it is beautiful in its symmetry and order. And far from stifling growth through unnatural oppression, this new order has made the garden flourish in a different way than it did before. So, welcome to my garden. May it bring you peace and calm, and a sense of balance and rightness with the world. All is as it should be.

The End.

February 17, 2021: How Do You Know Who You Are?

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Weekly Update:

So, I realize it has been a few weeks since I have posted a weekly update. Sorry about that. New habits are hard to establish sometimes, and I plain just forgot about it. But that is no reason to throw it all out, so here I am.

This week was a good week. The big issue was that I ran out of paper. I didn’t realize I was so close to being out because I thought I had some new paper somewhere. Turns out, nope, I didn’t. I was going to continue/restart my revision of Cipher with Holly Lisle’s How To Revise Your Novel (Affiliate link), but it involves printing out your manuscript and as I was about to add paper, well… Anyway, so I printed off the first 50 pages and have ordered paper, which I will get on Saturday of next week. So February is looking like it is NOT going to be revision week. I will continue with the website work.

Book Review:

The book I am reviewing this month is The Likeness by Tana French. I really need to reread it. It is gripping and intense. The story is a murder investigation through undercover work. The main character is a detective who, because her appearance is so strikingly similar to the victim’s, goes undercover as the victim, pretending that she is not really dead, so that the suspects might give themselves away and she can find out who killed her double.

It has very believable training, and explores the nature of identity: how much is internal and how much is what our actions are. How memory plays into it. But it is not a literary novel; it is mainstream suspense. I was so engrossed in the story that it colored everything in my life, and I felt I was really there, even when I wasn’t reading. The description was realistic and yet totally alien to anything I’ve ever done. That combination was obsessive.

This is the second book in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but the books are only very loosely connected. There was one small event in this book that recalled the previous book, In the Woods, which is also a great novel (but which I don’t remember at all, unfortunately — I guess I need to reread that one, too!), but otherwise, the plots were completely different and unrelated.

The main thing I took from The Likeness is a deep questioning of who I am as a person, and how much of that depends on my actions, my beliefs, and my memories. Who are we really?

In Closing:

Have you explored questions of identity? Has a book ever made you question yourself? How do you continue to define and create your authentic self?

III – The Empress

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III – The Empress

The cold wetness of a tongue awakens me. The dog is jumping up and down, but all I see is barren land. Just dirt. Within myself, I know instinctively that this land isn’t sterile, just dormant with potential. Someone or something has stomped out all the dreams and just abandoned it. I stand up, seeing myself clothed in a skirt of green leaves, and a top made of red flower petals, the only spot of brightness here. But I am sad; I don’t belong in this place that is so dead.

I walk around the dirt in the pale morning light of dawn. There is nothing for miles and miles.

Even the air smells like dust.

I am tempted to walk away. To find my real home, because this is not it. I belong with lush greenery and humming insects, not this dead land of nothingness. But even as I turn to go, I can’t. I can feel the pull of the land, the potential it still holds. Knowing that it has been abandoned again and again means that I can’t abandon it now. Not even for my true home.

I hunch over and cry.

I cry for all the lost children, all the abandoned pets, all the gardens gone to fallow. I cry for those who’ve lost those things, too: the parents standing at too-small graves, the little boy crying out the window for his cat, the woman in the nursing home watering a single plant every day with the same attention she once paid to a huge vegetable garden.

As I cry, I notice something. Under my hand, where the tears fall, a small sprout has timidly peeked its head up. Maybe that’s all this place needs: someone to care.

I care.

I feel the watery pools behind my eyes as I take in the world’s sorrow.

I just let it all rain out of me. Rain, rain, rain nourishing the land.

In no time, this once barren place has become home, my real home.

The dog yips and dances around, then disappears into the undergrowth. I am alone now, but no, never alone.

My tears dry and my face lights up in joy, as I once more stand straight and tall. I smile at a bud of an iris, and it slowly blooms, proudly presenting its golden beard against its deep purple petals.

I whistle to a bee, and it begins to dance. As I watch and continue to whistle, hundreds of bees join the first and follow a choreography brilliant enough to dazzle the world’s most prestigious ballet company. I sit on a stump and a shy rabbit hops up to my feet, then settles in my lap. A butterfly flutters over and kisses my nose, then kisses several of the most upstanding gentlemen flowers, then flies off again, coquette that she is.

All this land needed was compassion and tears and feeling. A mother. I have come home again.

The End.

Routine Friendships and Friendly Routines #IWSG 02-03-2021

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Monthly Report

So, you may or may not have noticed, but I forgot to update last week. Whoops! I’m still not used to the weekly blogging thing, I guess. In any case, I write these on Sundays, so even though you will be reading this on Wednesday, February 3, today is actually the last day of January. So it feels right to return to a monthly report. On the whole, January was, as many have been before, a rather fractured month. Inspired by the hopeful energy of the New Year, I must admit I chose to start WAY TOO MANY new classes. There’s a meditation class, a health class, a WordPress class, and a Mailerlite class, and I am now behind on all of them. The meditation, despite being one of the classes without a deadline, is the one that is doing the best. On the other hand, my routines have been solid, which is a new and refreshing thing, and possibly the reason the meditation class is going so well, since it is part of my evening routine. I now have five items on my morning routine, seven on my evening (around dinner) routine, and six on my night (right before bed) routine. I have been getting most things done every day, though there is usually one of the evening or night that just doesn’t get done. I try not to let it be the same one as the day before, but since I have been doing guided meditation in the evening, I sometimes skip the unguided meditation at night. Writing and the peripheral activities (January was for the website) have also been doing well, thanks to the routines and the new streaming on Sundays. I get a story done each week during the stream, and I’ve also been able to do a blog post each week. I stream for 3 hours, so there is plenty of time. I will see at the end of this post if I managed my 10,000 word goal for the month, but if I don’t make it, I will at least be close.

Optional Monthly Question

February 3 question -Blogging is often more than just sharing stories. It’s often the start of special friendships and relationships. Have you made any friends through the blogosphere?

I hate to say this, but no. Actually not at all, unless you count my earliest days of online journaling when I had an Open Diary account. I made friends through that, but they have all passed on over time. Most of the friendships I have with posters on my blog have actually come from other areas, such as NaNoWriMo and Holly’s Writing Classes. I’ll give a quick shout out to those because Holly Lisle has temporarily lowered the prices to 50% off all classes over $20 due to the economic struggles we are all facing. I’ll be returning to How To Revise Your Novel in February, and I maintain that it is the very best writing class I have ever taken. Getting it for half off would be a steal. In fair disclosure, that is an affiliate link. If you prefer not to use it, you can do an internet search on Holly’s Writing Classes, and you will find all her offerings including that class. I have made a lot of friends through the forums, so even if all you get is the free flash fiction class, it comes with free, perpetual access to the forums*.

It is one of the best places on the internet, full of empathetic and compassionate people trying to help each other on the writing journey. My affiliate link to the free flash fiction course is here: How to Write Flash Fiction that Doesn’t SUCK

Of course, the lack of blog-related friendships is on me. I’m not very social. I recognize that to have good success with blogging, I need to go to other blogs and comment, and somehow, that part of the equation always gets skipped. It’s something I need to work on because when I do take the time, I am amazed by all the wonderful insights and perspectives I encounter. To link this to the previous section, it seems like, once the current routines are 100% solid rather than just mostly solid, I could add blog-reading to either the morning or evening routines (before bed would be silly!). Something I’ll have to consider!

INSECURE WRITER’S SUPPORT GROUP

FOUNDED BY

Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh

Twitter is @TheIWSG Hashtag: #IWSG

Join in here!

IWSG Website

The awesome co-hosts for the February 3 posting of the IWSG are Louise – Fundy Blue , Jennifer Lane, Mary Aalgaard, Patsy Collins at Womagwriter, and Nancy Gideon!

*assuming good behavior, of course, as is true of all forums.

January 2021 Book Review: Daily Meditations

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So, the third week of each month will be a book review.  This month’s is a little unconventional.  I normally read fiction, but this month I am reviewing two non-fiction books, both of them daily readers.  But first, here’s what I’ve been up to this week!

Weekly Update

This week has been fairly uneventful on the writing front. I got another flash fiction piece done for the Tarot collection and did some website work (mostly learning stuff and applying it to local test sites, not too many changes to the actual live website yet), as well as starting to learn my way around Mailerlite so I can get a newsletter going again, this time without sending myself (and possibly others) lots of spam from who knows where. THAT was an eye-opener and the reason I don’t currently have a list. But yeah, moving slowly, but still making progress.

The main thing is that I have been more committed to my routines. I have a morning, evening, and night routine, and these help me stay sane and also help me to be more productive overall. On that note, one of the things I do is read inspirational passages from day books, and it has been hard to find some that I like, so I thought I’d share the ones I’m currently using for morning and night. I explain more about my morning routine later.

Book Review: Open Mind by Diane Mariechild and Every Day Spirit by Mary Davis

We will start with the night book, because I’ve had it the longest.

When I was in college, my mom bought me Open Mind: Women’s Daily Inspiration for Becoming Mindful by Diane Mariechild. I have returned to it over and over again in my life. Each day is on a separate page with the date at the top, then a quote by a spiritual woman, and finally a few paragraphs by Diane Mariechild explaining what that quote means to her and how we can use it. Today’s quote is from Izumi Shikibu:

Listen, listen;
longing and loss.
In the struck bell’s
recurrent calling,
no moment in which to forget.

And her explanation is about the importance of dealing with loss in a meaningful way.

I recently decided that I wanted to supplement Open Mind. I wanted to read Open Mind at night, but another passage in the morning. It took me a long time, but I finally decided on Every Day Spirit: A Dayabook of Wisdom, Joy, and Peace by Mary Davis.

This book is similar to Open Mind in several ways. Like Open Mind, it has a different entry for each day of the year. Also it was written by a woman. The main difference is that Davis’s book has a more personal overriding theme: some time she spent in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. So there are entries that can be more like diary entries where she discusses something that happened that day. Other entries do have a quote and commentary like Mariechild’s, but not all of them. Finally, Davis’s has two suggestions for focus during the day. A focus for how to approach the world/your daily life/external events called “In The World” and a more internal focus called “In The Heart”.

Appropriately, today’s entry is about developing a morning spiritual practice.

My morning routine consists of the following:

1. Reading a passage from a spiritual book (currently this one)

2. Drawing a Tarot card for the day

3. Doing my coffee ritual, see here:

4. Committing to my ideals

5. Connecting with content related to my ideals.

And that’s what I do, pretty much every day. There are days I miss, particularly when I have to work early on Thursdays and Saturdays, but I often get at least one of those in.

In Closing:

Do you have a spiritual practice or morning routine that gives meaning to your life? What are the key points in your spirituality or non-spirituality?

Note: All ideas/philosophies/faiths are welcome in the comments as long as they do not demonize any others or any living beings, but please do not argue about any being better than others.

Welcome to 2021!

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Welcome!

So, I am going to finally start blogging more regularly. This comes as a result of starting to stream on Twitch once a week. I started doing that during NaNoWriMo this year, so in November 2020. And I was still finishing up the novel during December, but starting in January, I ran out of things to be actually writing. So, naturally decided to work on blog posts.

And this is the first one! So, here is what you can expect:

The first Wednesday of every month is still going to be the IWSG – Insecure Writer’s Support Group – post. The second Wednesday, for now, is just going to be a reflection of some kind. The third Wednesday will be a book review. And the fourth and/or fifth Wednesdays will be for flash fiction. This is because I will also be doing the Storytime Blog Hops and those are the last Wednesdays of January, April, July, and October.

The flash fiction for the foreseeable future will be the Tarot flash pieces I have been working on. 0 – The Fool will remain free and visible. As I add each new one, however, the one before will disappear. So every month, you will have 0 – The Fool and whichever one is most recent to read at your leisure.

On the months with five Wednesdays, I will be taking them as I go, maybe seeing what others are interested in, or just writing about what is on my mind.

During November, I am not going to have full blog posts, but rather just have a weekly update and then word count. That way, I can still focus on writing my novel during my Twitch stream.

Weekly Update:

Normally, this will be the first part of the post, but since this week, we have an introductory post, it made sense to put it first.

In any case, this was a good week for productivity. I mostly worked on the website and getting a mailing list/newsletter started, but not done with either of those yet. I am behind on the website class I signed up with through Udemy, but still made some progress on one or the other every day, and I also figured out what book(s) I am going to review for next week’s blog.

In Closing:

So, I hope you will stick around to read what I have coming. Next week, I will have a book review for some daily readers I use to keep me centered.

What would you like me to write about?

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Pet Peeves Worth Their Weight in Gold #IWSG 01/06/2021

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Monthly Status Report

December was a quiet month for me. As usual, my monthly goal was just to finish up loose ends, and I am happy to report that I have finished the rough draft of Prime Tower. I wrote most of it in November for National Novel Writing Month, but didn’t quite finish. I was able to get it done on Sunday, December 27 during my weekly writing stream.

Speaking of which, that has become a new part of my life, and it has become completely habitual. I still fumble around when I don’t know what to say during the chatting breaks, but they are still nice to have, and it is enjoyable to converse with the people who show up while also getting work done!

I did create my loose yearly plan, which looks like this currently:
December 2020: Loose Ends
January 2021: Website work
February 2021: Revision of Cipher
March 2021: Covers/Copy for the Hazel Kanetzki short story
April 2021: Camp Nano: Revision of Cipher
May 2021: Revision
June 2021: Website work
July 2021: Revision
August 2021: Revision
September 2021: Covers/Copy
October 2021: Nano Prep
November 2021: NaNoWriMo
December 2021: Loose Ends

If I happen to finish the whole revision before the end of August, I think I will work on developing either the Hazel Kanetzki or Cipher series. I think it is highly unlikely, though, because I am a very slow reviser!

Optional Monthly Question

January 6 question – Being a writer, when you’re reading someone else’s work, what stops you from finishing a book/throws you out of the story/frustrates you the most about other people’s books?

This is a difficult question. It’s pretty rare that I don’t finish something I have started reading. Besides being a completionist in general, I am also almost always curious about what will happen next. So, most of the things I can think of are not actually deal breakers, just things I am tired of or get frustrated with. So here they are, in no particular order:

  • Redemption arcs that fall apart: If I think a character has a chance for redemption, it irritates me to no end if the author makes them slide back to being evil.
  • Turning every M/F friendship into a romance or a failed part of a love triangle, but never turning other friendships into romances.
  • Sexy vampire romance.
  • Hot cop love interest in cozy mysteries.
  • Potential vampires who want to remain human.
  • Sex scenes that take away from the main plot.

I’m sure there are others, but these are the main ones. You may notice that I don’t have anything like “bad writing” or “grammar mistakes” or anything like that. That’s because I actually tend not to notice those things unless I am trying to. And I don’t like trying to unless I have a good reason. When I am reading for pleasure, it all goes right past me as I devour the story. But the things above will distract me and irritate me. I may not put the book down, but I may sigh . . . and wish it had been something else.

Which is why these books are often ones of great value. Because it’s these missed moments that give me the inspiration for my own works, and why I continue to write and find great joy in the writing. Because I’m writing the stuff I can’t find anywhere else. And maybe others will appreciate the novelty as well.

INSECURE WRITER’S SUPPORT GROUP

FOUNDED BY

Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh

Twitter is @TheIWSG Hashtag: #IWSG

Join in here!

IWSG Website

The awesome co-hosts for the January 6 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren , J Lenni Dorner, Gwen Gardner Sandra Cox, and Louise – Fundy Blue!