Tidbits About the World of Martapa Part 2

 Here are a few more tidbits about my book series:

1) The Wizards of Shaniko are named after a small town in Eastern Oregon.  When we were going to college in La Grande, (Go Mountaineers), we would drive through the small town when we went back and forth.  I liked the name, so popped it right into my story.

2) Quite a few of the names in my stories are from small towns or fun places we have been. 

3) Some of my elven and Akicitia names are Native American in origin.  Akicitia is actually "police" in Lakota.  Tsalagi, (the main stretch of mountains in Taina), means Cherokee and is pronounced "jah-lah-gee".  That was a nod to my dad's side of the family.

4) There are a lot of nods to my family in the books, whether right out there or more subtle.  The name of the mountain range is definitely right out there.  In my original series Amber, my half elf heroine, was a nod to the fact my dad had to choose between being white or Cherokee at the time.  (Things are definitely different now, but it was a hard decision in the 50's and 60's.)  I don't like to be political, but that was more of a personal subject that affected me directly, not knowing until I was an adult that my grandpa was Cherokee, for sure.  So I expressed it in my writing.

5) The map I made for my writing was slapped together in 5 minutes.  I flushed it out more later, but one of my friends wanted to see what my world actually looked like so a whipped it out.

Happy Writing!

Tidbits About the World of Martapa

 I thought I might share a few random facts about my world of Martapa today, just for fun!

1) The name Martapa is built up of my husband's and our friend's names, plus a few random letters.  Yeah, not the best way to name something, but I like it.

2) All of my main characters were a roleplaying character for the campaign I ran via the internet for our friend, my sister and us.

3) Elly was originally a gnome, because my sister loved gnomes, but I have no gnomes in my story world, so I had to make her a very small human.

4) Tarkil almost didn't live through our first meeting of the six main characters.  It was a good thing my husband wanted our friend to have fun and spared him.

5) Duncan was my husband's and he was not anything like what my husband usually roleplays with mages.  They are usually flashy, all powerful mages who have to show off their power.  He wanted someone who was humble and unassuming, yet powerful.  Thus Duncan was born.

6) There are quite a few scenes and conversations that are plucked right from our roleplaying sessions, though I had to clean them up to make them flow a little better.  I literally was writing a story as I went since I would send anywhere from 1 page to 5 pages out ever three days to my group.  It was fun!  So when it came to writing the first book I had a VERY good outline I'd already written. And though some of the subplots were not in the original sessions, I was weaving in a lot of the main plot, even if we never got to them.

Keep on writing!

The Second Book and Putting Yourself Out There

 So as I spout about making sure to keep on writing, I have been working on my second book to polish it up for publication.  Almost there, just a few editing problems and my cover artist... (cough, college age daughter, cough) is a little busy at the moment.  But the plan is to have it on Amazon by May.  Every time I say, "I'm going to publish my book" I feel very self conscious.  I'm not sure how all of you feel, but here are some notions that have crossed my mind.

1) This is my baby and I want everyone to love it.  Let's be practical, not everyone is going to "love" your book.  You are going to get some bad reviews, but it's okay.  What did mom say, "words will never hurt you"?  It's hard to take criticism, but it is good. It helps you improve.  If nothing else, my critique groups helped me with this concept.

2) Don't beat yourself up if you don't become a super star.  For me, this was all a bucket list sort of thing, anyway.  Yes, the book taking off would be wonderful, but I will take the fact I actually sold some books.  And they weren't all relatives! I even sold a few Kindle copies to people overseas!  My husband calls me an international author because of it.

3) Promote yourself.  I am guilty of not doing this, but that is what my husband, (and fellow Grange members), is for.  But seriously, talk about your book.  It isn't bragging, it's letting the world know that you have made something new to share with the world.  Your book following will not grow if you don't talk about it.

Happy Writing!

The Power of Weather

 When you are writing, the setting and mood are very important to the scene.  This includes the weather.  You never get bad news when it's sunny.  The hero always has a brilliant sunrise as they save the world. When the lovers must leave each other, rain is always an option.  It sets the mood in a way that describing the mood would not work.

I wouldn't use the weather as a mood setter unless you really need to convey a certain mood, such as tension or a great loss, but it never  hurts to describe the weather briefly so your reader doesn't expect something horrible or wonderful every time you mention the weather.  It gives it an air of surprise.

I like to mention things like wind before a battle or interaction.  The wind, for example, will affect how arrows fly or items flying into people as they battle. It's a small thing, but adds to the feel without jumping out and saying, "hey, it's super windy and it's going to make it hard for them to win this battle".

Darkness, because of clouds or rain, can also add to the mood.  When the group is battling at the end of my series this weather adds to the dire nature of the situation.  And as they win and Aiyana uses the magic to heal so many upon the battle field the sun begins to push through the darkness.  It adds to the mood, as well.

Just think hard on not only the setting, but the weather as well, and I think you will have a better way to express the  mood of your scene.

Happy writing!