WeWriWa—Ser Folco wants to talk

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

I’m switching back to A Dream of Peacocks, my alternative history about Dante and Beatrice. This comes from near the beginning of Chapter XIX, “Beautiful Betrothal.” It’s now late September 1288, and Dante and his much-younger halfsiblings have been staying at the Portinaris’ summer villa in Fiesole since July. They’ve postponed their return to Florence because Beatrice is recovering from a long, serious illness, a brutal beating from her now-deceased husband, and a birth that almost killed her.

Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice

I was reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in an anteroom off of the great hall when I became aware of Ser Folco calling my name. With much reluctance, I closed the book and set it on a small table on my left. Respect for my host came before everything, even my beloved Aristotle.

Ser Folco took a seat on a golden-backed chair with scarlet velvet cushions. “I’ve been seriously thinking about a very important subject for the last few months, which we need to discuss. If you don’t agree with my suggestion, I won’t feel offended or insulted. I also won’t mind if you need some time to think about this before you give an answer. We’ll still be friends regardless.”

I suspected he wanted to talk about money, and began silently rehearsing how I’d politely refuse his charity. It was one thing to stay in his villa and accept some money and other generous gifts every so often, but it would be humiliating to entirely exist on charity.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

People already talked about how I had to beg for so many loans and the financial trouble my family had fallen into. They didn’t need any more reasons to laugh and disrespect me.

“What happened last November was a tragedy,” Ser Folco began. “I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to lose my wife so young and unexpectedly, and to lose a firstborn son before his life began. That obviously deeply affected you, and I’m glad you seem to be past the worst of your grief.” He paused before continuing. “You’re too young to live the rest of your life as a childless widower. It’s not good for man to be alone, and it’s our duty to have as many children as possible. Have you considered remarriage yet?”

Thank God, he wasn’t going to insult me by offering charity. “Of course I’ve thought about it, but I had far more important priorities over the last year, coupled with how I couldn’t leave my house for most of that time. Do you have a second wife in mind for me?”

Ser Folco smiled. “Indeed I do. I’ve discussed this potential marriage with Cilia, and she agrees with me that it couldn’t be more perfect. Would you be at all interested in Bice?”

Reflections on my first published book’s tenth birthday

Today, 9 May 2024, makes ten years since the release of my first published book, And Jakob Flew the Fiend Away. Though this was far from the first book I’d ever written, I felt it was my strongest completed, publication-ready manuscript at the time, as well as one of the shortest ones. We always want to lead with our strongest efforts!

I’ve spoken so many times about how I wish I’d done so many things differently while writing this book, feelings I maintain to this day. Part of that comes from how I was so new to deliberately writing towards publication and querying (before I decided to go indie), and thus felt certain constrains compelling me to somewhat stifle the voice and style I naturally tend towards.

As I explained in “The Story Behind the Story”:

Starting in 2006, I began writing a lot of long short stories/pieces of backstory about my Shoah characters (both during and after the war), to be periodically inserted into my Atlantic City books set at the same time. Originally, they were intended as fairly short pieces serving as a sobering alternate trajectory to the fairly unburdened lives of these American teens who only think they have it difficult, until these characters ultimately linked up after the war. They soon grew so long and involved, they threatened to overwhelm the books they were intended for, and took the focus off the real main characters and their storylines. I realized I needed to spin all these interconnected characters off into their own series.

I started by expanding the story about Jakob (and, later, Rachel) into a full-length novel. Not only was it one of the fairly shorter ones, it was more straightforward due to its lack of an ensemble cast. It was easy to flesh out all the long passages summarizing events, and to fill in the many blanks. Because of Jakob’s age, it also seemed perfect to query as YA (albeit upper, mature YA). Hence, the fade to black in the wedding night scene, and my decision to make it into two books instead of one very long book like I usually do.

I initially intended it to be one book, but because I wanted to pursue traditional publication at the time, and was cognizant it had reached the upper acceptable wordcount limit for historical and upper YA, I felt it would be best if I created two volumes. The most perfect ending opened up, and I was able to turn the rest of the material in the originating story into a somewhat shorter volume about Jakob’s first year in America, and his and Rachel’s first real year as husband and wife. Each volume truly has its own focus, and the second one reads more like New Adult than Young Adult.

I’ve thought a few times about significantly expanding the first book, with more chapters and longer chapters, as a companion volume to the original. The new version would be more for the adult market, while the first one would remain the YA version. There are some books like that. However, that would take way too much time, and I’ve long since moved on from this story.

I still intend to go back to Jakob and Rachel at some point and write more books about them, but trying to retool a book I completed and published years ago seems like a big waste of time. The most important thing was acknowledging how being too much in my own head when I wrote it caused me to adopt a style and voice that’s not naturally mine. Besides the shorter than usual chapters, I had too many descriptions of body language and emotional reactions.

It’s always been hard for me to read back through this book, since much of it just doesn’t feel authentically mine. I wrote all 125,000 of those words, but I wrote them while trying to shape myself into someone I’m not and never will be.

I even briefly (VERY briefly) toyed with the idea of doing it in first-person, since I was seriously trying for traditional publication, and that POV is such a popular default in most current YA. If I’d gone through with that, it would’ve felt even more inauthentic to who I am! It’s extraordinarily rare that I’m genuinely called to writing an entire book in first-person.

The first published book is always a learning experience, and that was mine. Despite all my misgivings and reluctance to voluntarily revisit it, I’m still very proud of it.

WeWriWa—A spiritually muted Easter

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

Since today, 5 May, is Orthodox Easter (quite late this year!), I’m sharing an Easter-themed snippet from A Dream Deferred: Lyuba and Ivan at University. In the snippet I shared for the Western Easter on 31 March, 22-year-old Yustina Yeltsina-Baronova made an Easter basket for a handsome former Marine named Nestor Ugolnikov. The year is 1949.

Though Nestor hasn’t been to church in years, he caved to Yustina’s invitation to spend the holiday with her family. Nestor’s parents disowned him in shame and disgust after he lost his leg at Iwo Jima.

Khristos voskrese (Christ is risen) is the traditional Russian Easter greeting. Father Timofey is a crossover character in my Atlantic City books, as Cinnimin attends his church during her 1940 birthday trip to New York and again during graduate school.

All the votive candles around the church are simultaneously lit by a special spark, and the ikonostasis doors are flung open. Father Timofey reappears, having changed his dour black robes for silver and white, embroidered with tiny gemstones sparkling in all the candlelight.

“Khristos voskrese!” Father Timofey proclaims.

Nestor sits and daydreams as the service wears on. Every so often, he crosses himself and mutters, “Indeed he has risen” in response to the constant parade of “Khristos voskrese!” so as not to seem too tuned-out. After the interminable Easter Matins and Easter Hours, Father Timofey invites all the faithful to come up for Communion. Nestor mindlessly crosses himself when Communion is brought to him. He closes his eyes and swallows the wine and bread on the spoon, feeling as spiritually detached as he usually does.

Divine Liturgy then begins, and Nestor goes back to half-heartedly paying attention. Finally, Father Timofey delivers the closing benediction and entreats everyone to forgive one another.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Nestor stands up as quickly as possible, his candle by now having burnt down about an inch and a half. On his way to temporarily depositing it in one of the sand-filled containers used for this purpose, he averts his eyes from all the people hugging and kissing in the traditional end of Easter services custom.

Yustina approaches him, an Easter basket on either arm, right after he’s placed his candle among all the others still flickering away. “Khristos voskrese!”

Before Nestor has time to react or realize what’s happening, Yustina has set both of the baskets on chairs, jumped up on another chair, and hugged him. Before she jumps back off the chair, she kisses him on the cheek.

“Now look who’s being too friendly with men she barely knows,” Milada whispers.

Yustina hands Nestor one of the baskets, with a dark blue bow on the handle. “I made this just for you yesterday. Please don’t try to refuse it.”

IWSG—Pulling up to the finish line

Welcome back to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, which convenes the first Wednesday of every month to commiserate over worries, fears, doubts, and struggles.

This month’s question is:

How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

One of the reasons I miss the older Macs (128K, 1993, 1996, 1999, eMac) is because the screens were much smaller, and the Internet either didn’t exist or was very primitive. Thus, I didn’t need to worry about online distractions while writing, and could just type while listening to music.

I could turn off WiFi, but that would take away my writing soundtracks on Spotify and YouTube, as well as my ability to research as necessitated. Handwriting a first draft removes those distractions.

Just as I suspected, taking a break from Dream Deferred for a few weeks to research, write, gather images for, and edit my A to Z posts on both blogs threw my forward momentum off again, and it took a few weeks to fully get back into the swing of things. I think I’ve finally learnt my lesson this time, and will get back to how I used to do my A to Z posts months in advance instead of waiting until March and creating a lot of stress as a result.

I rethought my plan to end Dream Deferred with a few chapters getting the Konevs set up in NYC and taking care of remaining business in Minnesota over the summer of 1952. In just one abandoned, unfinished chapter, the story was already becoming too overcomplicated all over again!

The end of a book isn’t the time to start introducing a bunch of new plot twists, dramas, and setting changes. It’s supposed to be about bringing storylines to their conclusions and tying everything together.

I briefly reconsidered one of my earlier ideas, for Mr. Konev to die near the end and the Epilogue to open with his funeral and the reading of his will. Then I remembered why I decided to push that off till the fifth book. Keeping him alive a bit longer and merely introducing the idea of an upcoming move back to NYC also gives additional layers of meaning to the title.

Belatedly attending university isn’t Lyuba and Ivan’s only deferred dream. They’ve reconciled with Ivan’s father after decades of acrimonious estrangement, and now get to enjoy a peaceful relationship in his remaining time left. They’re also looking ahead to a new life in New York when it’s more convenient, knowing this is one dream that won’t be deferred for decades.

It’s important to not let a story keep going after all the major plots have found their perfect endings. Always know when it’s the right time to quit. The Rap Critic (one of my favorite YouTubers) was very confused when the (awful) Young Money song “Every Girl” suddenly introduced a new guy after the song seemed to be finished. “Is this song still going? Is this another verse or an outro?…What is the point of this part? It sounds so disconnected and tacked-on.”

He was even more annoyed at the (also awful) Nicki Minaj song “Anaconda” for going on way too long. “Dude, just end it. Dude, just end it. Even the engineer’s trying to cut you off. End the song. End the song!”

I hope I can finally be finished by the end of May, and will be getting some more ear piercings to celebrate (my right tragus and helix flat). When I’ve finished writing the new chapters in my editing outline and done preliminary edits, I’m leaning towards a reward of my left anti-tragus, which would be my lucky number ninth ear cartilage piercing.

Have you ever second-guessed your writing outline and plans multiple times? Have you ever found yourself going on way too long with a story that needed to end earlier?

WeWriWa—A very sombre aliyah

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This comes from “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. It’s now the first Sabbath after the cataclysm, and 23-year-old Mancika Laurel is physically at the small synagogue in a Poconos colony but mentally in New York on Tuesday.

Mancika has been called up for the first aliyah, which involves chanting a blessing before and after a section of the Torah reading. Though she’d prefer to remain seated, she insists she can’t do it without her best friend Ammiel by her side. No one yet knows she and Ammiel are now more than friends.

Gomel is a blessing of thanksgiving said by the Torah after being delivered from danger. Eicha is the Hebrew name for Lamentations, which is chanted in a dirge-like cantillation trope on the fast day of Tisha B’Av.

Mancika slowly rose to her feet and ambulated to the bimah without letting go of Ammiel or leaving the shelter of his tallit. They gave their Hebrew names to Lev, though saying her father’s name was like poison upon Mancika’s tongue. She had little hope he’d ask for forgiveness before Yom Kippur.

As she chanted the blessing in unison with Ammiel, Mancika thought about all the people who weren’t in synagogue today because they’d been killed four days ago or were trapped under the rubble, their hope and strength waning, or confined to a hospital bed. If one of any number of things had gone differently on Tuesday, she might’ve been among their ranks. Perhaps she and Courtnie would’ve been lingering over breakfast when it happened, and unable to escape before that last hideous moment she’d never forget witnessing as long as she drew breath.

During the three lines of the first aliyah, she couldn’t stop replaying that sickening image in her mind’s eye. Ammiel had to nudge her when it was time to recite the after blessing. She pronounced the words in a daze and then shuffled off to the other side of the lectern.

Dvora and H.G. were called up next and recited the blessings in a similar deadened voice both before and after.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Even Lev, who had only seen the horror from a distance, read the parashah in rather hushed, sombre tones, using the Eicha trope. This might as well really be Tisha B’Av instead of the Sabbath before Rosh Hashanah.

“Do any of you know the words of Gomel?” Lara asked afterwards.

“I’ve said it after each of my births, but I never memorized the words,” Dvora said.

Lara held out a laminated card with large print and directed the congregation to the page in the siddur. Mancika, Ammiel, Dvora, and H.G. read it first in Hebrew and then English, “Blessèd are you, Lord our God, King of the world, who rewards the undeserving with goodness, and who has rewarded me with goodness.” Everyone else responded in Hebrew and English, “May he who rewarded you with all goodness reward you with all goodness forever.”

Mancika stumbled back to her seat still holding onto Ammiel and immediately flopped into the chair.