“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

— Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

This is a reasonably famous quote — and since I’ve called it a great one as well, you’re probably ‘sensing’ (Deanna Troy empath style! 😉 ) that I agree with it.

I also believe it speaks for itself, so will offer no further exposition, but return to striving to do great work. 😀

I know I always say this — but how can it be September already?!

Nonetheless, it is, which (naturellement) meant that on 1 September I posted installment #8 in the “band of brothers” post series on Supernatural Underground. Awesome, high five. 😉

When it comes to brotherhood tropes, King Arthur probably has a lot to answer for.

I’ve traversed a reasonable amount of thematic territory with this series to date, so this month I’m revisiting a few favourite reads that I think illustrate the topic — either in spades (yes, Malazan, I’m looking right at you 😀 ), or in more muted form but sufficient to make my list:

Celebrating The “Band of Brothers” — A Few More Fantasy Favourites

One more thing, though: I was struck by an aspect of the first three book covers featured in the SU post. The order was completely by chance but would love to know if you see something in them, too. If so, do let me know your powerful thoughts. 😀

On Monday, I celebrated National Poetry Day with a poem, Fey.

In the meantime, I’ve had a little bit of poetry good news, which is that another (hitherto unoublished) poem, titled Last of the Wine, has been accepted for the NZ Poetry Society Anthology, which will come out later this year.

It’s been a long time since I’ve submitted any poetry (because of the multi-year, all-in project aka The Chaos Gate), so it’s gratifying to have an acceptance. 🙂

And tomorrow will be my Supernatural Underground post, once we clock over into US EST — if you’re following me there, don’t forget to look out for it.

In the meantime, Kim Falconer has another fascinating post in her More Than Meets The Eye series to read and enjoy:

Gossip — More Than Meets The Eye

Friday was NZ National Poetry Day, so what better time to feature a poem! Fey is one I’m rather fond of, especially those hurdy-gurdy trees. 😀

Fey

your door
stands open still
at dusk, your light
a moth’s antenna
across
shadowed lawn

bare feet rustle
in last year’s
leaf drift, a wind
sways
through naked trees

you say
you will hang
a cricket cage
above your lintel,
burn apple wood
in the grate –
dance, the circle
of your skirt
reflecting
the moon’s dark face

I ride
a rocking horse
with patchwork eyes,
steal
through your door
to the cold-stone hearth –
dream
of dervish footsteps
hurdy-gurdy trees

(c) Helen Lowe

Highly Commended, Takahe National Poetry Competition 2008
Published in Takahe 68, December 2009

If you enjoy poetry, you may wish to take a look under Categories and Poetry in the far-right-hand sidebar. A large number of poems are featured there: some of my own, those of other contemporary poets, and favourites from times of yore. I will not promise “something for everyone”, but a reasonable selection. 😀

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The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphabetical order, by name, of course!

Currently, we’re traversing the “foothills of N.” 😀

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Narn: leads Bronze Hold, a satellite fortress of the House of Blood

Narn of Bronze Hold, on the Commander’s far side, had kept Asantir engaged in discussion since they sat down, canvassing weapons and armor before he expanded on boundary patrols and tactics.

~ from © Daughter of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three – Chapter 20, Emissaries of Night

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If you missed Monday’s post on writing minor characters — and would like to read it 😉 — click on:

From the Backlist: Reflection on Minor Characters

And from last Thursday, here’s FB Group Haarth’s invitation to:

The Great Wall Of Night Series Read-Along

Update Time

As you know from last week, currently I’m deep in revising The Wall Of Night #4 (working title: The Chaos Gate.)

With another About The Characters post due on Thursday, it got me thinking about the importance of minor characters in storytelling, as well as the major ones.

And that reminded me (eventually!) that I’d penned a post on the topic away back in 2012 (gulp!), shortly after The Gathering of the Lost came out.

On tracking it down, I decided it was just as relevant now, as then (with a few tweakings), so am reposting it as part of the “From The Backlist” posts.

Enjoy!

Reflections On Minor Characters

“Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about minor characters, in particular how I take as much care with naming them as I do with the main protagonists. In part that’s because changing a name can alter a character’s personality and role in the story.  Even if that’s an entirely positive process, it’s still a dynamic to be aware—if not wary—of, since expanding the list of point-of-view characters inevitably lengthens a book.

A reason why this phenomenon occurs could be “…because characters, it seems, just like real people, have minds of their own. But perhaps that’s because — if I’m doing my job right — within the pages of the book they are real people. They have to be, in fact, in order to live for you on the page.”

The rider I want to add to this prior observation (yes, I do discuss character development reasonably often 😀 ) is that it’s just as true for minor characters as it is for major ones. One of the telling measures of writing quality for me is whether the minor characters, for whatever brief time they are on the stage of the story, live and breathe and are real. When a writer does this successfully it adds depth and texture, as well as conviction, to the story — in my humble opine. 🙂 I know it adds greatly to my personal enjoyment of the read.

One way I like to think about this in my own writing is that even if characters are not important to the story being told, they will be important to themselves. Even the most minor character will have a history and a life that matters to them, and as the writer I have to convey a sense of that, even if the reader will only ever catch the most fleeting glimpse of the character on the page.

To convince, though, the glimpse the reader catches must feel real and three-dimensional—as real and believable as the main characters, albeit for a much shorter period of time.

I greatly admire authors who can do this with a key word or phrase that cements the character convincingly — but without overdoing the page time allowed, given the character’s place in this story (if not their own) is still minor.

As mentioned on Monday, there is a private FB group called Haarth, that was formed by and for readers who want to hang out together and talk all-things, you know, Haarth. 😀

As also mentioned, although Group Haarth is a reader gig and I try not to peer over their shoulder, I love to support and share their initiatives, and give others “oot thar” the opportunity to join in, should they wish.

Rosie of Group Haarth

In this case, I don’t think anyone can give you a better headsup and the lowdown on what’s afoot, than Group Haarth convenor, the awesome Rosie, who has very kindly put the following together:
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All Welcome for the Great “The Wall Of Night” Re-Read

Greetings, fellow Haarthlings!

Back in April we got some Exciting News about Book 4 (involving the words ‘The End’) and it got me thinking that perhaps the time had come for the Great Re-Read to begin. Not that I’ve been waiting of course, my paperback copies are well thumbed! But, I do have a tendency to gallop through a good narrative and I wanted to take a more considered approach this time. After doing a little thinking, I had the further idea of roping in my fellow fans in The Wall of Night Facebook group.

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It is a simple plan: I’m committing to writing a short post about whatever strikes me as I read each chapter, inviting further commentary and discussion as we go. I’ve started with a chapter a week and will speed up as needed along the way, with the aim of finishing in the run up to publishing day. It’s not yet possible to tell how far away that day is, of course, but a quick count up of chapters reassured me that Helen has already provided nearly three years worth of chapters-a-week, so I felt safe to begin!

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We are six chapters into The Heir of Night now, and are covering a multitude of details, from individual characters and their relationships, to the beginning of narrative arcs, world building, and of course the joy of any re-read… all the foreshadowing! Keeping to a slow pace is really helping the details to pop out and I am so much enjoying the insights from other readers.

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FB Group Haarth

Update time!

Welp, to paraphrase an Aragorn /  LoTR meme from forever ago (see The Very Secret Diary of Aragorn, Son of Arathorn 😀 ) the short version of the revision update is, “Still not done. … Not done yet.”

While we could leave it there, I thought you might be interested to know that I have divvied the revision up into seven (7) main tasks. Although not necessarily of equal size, in the past three (3) months I have completed two of them. (Hurrah for Team Revision — that’s me, myself, and I, just by the way. 😉 )

Task 2 was one of those I thought might be shorter. I even dared tell the inestimable Kate, WALL series editor, that I thought it would be straightforward. Ha! Talk about leaving oneself open to those cantankerous and contrary muses!

In fact, it involved the painstaking unpicking of a whole section (think of it like a patchwork quilt) and restitching the pieces together in an alternate configuration. A much better one, I have to say, but there may have been curses and gnashing of teeth in the process… (I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny, of course.)

Now, I’m on to 3 and 4, which although not completely joined at the hip do largely go together and form a large part of the first half of the book.

However, before I leap in, I’ll be reading the whole shebang through, warts and all, from go to whoa. This is something I always do, usually as the first revision task, but in this case Tasks 1 and 2 were both in the last section, which I wanted to get to grips with while it was still fresh from completing that go-to-whoa narrative.)

“I know” — tangible manuscripts!

I always read in printout form, too, for a number of reasons. No, it’s not just to show you all that there really is a manuscript, although that’s undoubtedly a collateral benefit. 😀

The main reason is to gauge the overall flow of the narrative, so although I can annotate the manuscript (ms) with suggested editorial and structural changes, the printout encourages me to keep reading — and I absolutely cannot make any changes to the electronic ms until I’ve read the whole.

Eschewing the electronic ms for read-through purposes also mitigates against endless reworking of a single sentence, or worse, a solitary mot juste — as well as providing a fresh lens on how it’s all really working. And yep, I really do find text can read differently from screen to page, just as speaking it aloud can also be very helpful in spotting and resolving redundancy and other infelicities.

Photo credit: Marisa Taylor

So that’s the next task, and although the muses always have the last say, I am hoping it will prove something of a “great leap forward”, revision-wise. I’m also excited to have reached this stage and am really looking forward to settling down with those printouts. (With some coloured pens handy, as I’m pretty sure they’ll be needed — they always have been with the other books!)

So-o, although like Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, I’m “not King—or done—yet”, I am deep in “making it so.” (I know, I know, mixing my genre classic metaphors, but one of the things I’ve always loved about the specfic genre is that it’s so mash-able—and always funworthy. 😀 )

He’s wearing the “White Tree” vambraces — but “not king yet” 😀

I’ll be back in three (3) months, if not sooner, to let you know whether the “great leap forward” has panned out. All digits pretzelled it’s not a “fall flat on my face” (or worse, sword) experience!

Speaks for itself, really… 😉

Speaking of Read Throughs…

You know there’s a dedicated Facebook group by and for The Wall Of Night series’ readers, right? If you don’t and want to find out more, or need a refresher, you can check out details here.

The group is independent of me, although I love to support their endeavours, but they’ve recently let me know that — heartened by my completing the go-to-whoa narrative — there’s to be a Great Reread and Read Along of WALL #1 to #3. 

So I’ll be posting details on Thursday, for any and all who’re interested.

Excelsior!

For a while now, I’ve been reprising a Daughter of Blood (and by extension The Wall Of Night) Q&A series that featured in 2019.

Today’s question is from Bethany and focuses on a prince who made his first appearance early in Daughter of Blood.

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Bethany: The Swarm prince at the beginning of Daughter of Blood has snake hair. If you did it to make him creepy, it worked!

Helen: I wanted Aranraith to stand out, and not in a good way, so the serpent hair was part of achieving that effect. Arguably, snakes get a raw deal in religion and storytelling, but that also means they convey a lot of unspoken messages to readers. The Biblical serpent is a clear manifestation of evil, while Medusa in Greek myth, who has the original serpent hair, is an ambiguous character depending on which story you read—but with a gaze that turns people to stone, unquestionably she’s powerful. Serpents are closely associated with poison, which is clearly dangerous but also often an underhand or secretive way of killing. The phrase “snake pit” conveys a sense of danger, too, but also hostility and competitiveness—and snake pits are a staple of the horror movie genre.

So yes, I did intend it to make Aranraith creepy, but so much more, too. 🙂

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Previous Thursday Q&A Refeatures:

2022:
March 31 — #1 Phoebe’s Question on Book Planning

April 21 — #2 Sam’s Question on Deleted Scenes

April 28 — #3 Sandy’s Question on Characters That Take Charge

May 19 — #4 Lindsay’s Question on Research

June 23 — #5 Chris’s Question on Tirael & “What Would Have Happened If…”

June 30 — #6 Rosie’s Question on the Web of Mayanne

September 8 — #7 Jason’s Question on Weapons & Names

October 6 — #8 Robin’s Question on Tuckerization Characters

November 24 — #9 Josh’s Question on Whether I Have A Favourite Moment in Daughter of Blood

December 15 — #10 Shannon’s Question re Sections or Characters that were Hard to Write

2023
March 30 — #11 Jenny’s Question re Inspiration and Keeping Going

May 18 — #12 Tom’s Question re Food and Feasts

June15 — #13 Ashley’s Question on Writing Through the Christchurch Earthquakes

“Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice.”

~ Margaret Atwood, b. 1939

“…a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor.” — Wikipedia

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So I guess there’s hope for me yet, when it comes to writing! 😀

And I do agree that the more one writes, putting effort and thought into it, and consciously striving to improve, then by and large, improvement does follow.

As a reader, though, I’ve never really thought of it as something I do to improve — but I imagine that if any reader pursues books that stretch comprehension of language and ideas, then one’s capacity to read deeply will grow.

Food for thought, just to kick off the week.