Yesterday, March 8, was International Women’s Day – huzza! Even if some days (for example, when the head of the UN talks about 300 years more until full equality) it feels like a case of three steps forward and two back!

However, even when there is a long way left to go, I feel it’s important to recognize how far we’ve come. Some years back now, when New Zealand celebrated 121 years of Women’s Suffrage I featured women characters from my then published books by way of celebration.

Today, I’m posting links to those posts and the featured characters again. In the spirit of International Women’s Day, I hope you’ll click through and enjoy:

Thornspell

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The Heir of Night (The Wall Of Night, Book One)

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The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall Of Night, Book Two)

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Last but not least:

The “Easter Egg” post

If the writing and blogging stars align, I may compile one for Daughter of Blood as well. Watch this space. 😀

Toward the end of Daughter of Blood (The Wall Of Night #3)there’s a point where the Sea House’s pilot star gets mentioned:

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“Nimor stopped, intent on the solitary star that could be seen through the Gray Lands’ cloud. “The pilot’s star,” he said softly, as even the wyr hounds turned their silver eyes skyward, following his gaze. No one spoke, but Faro knew they all understood that Nimor had not expected to see it again.”

The Sea House are mariners and navigators—and Nimor their envoy to the rest of the Derai Alliance—so their pilot star is like the Pole Star in this world: an important navigational aid and way of determining “true north.”

Similar to “true north”, the pilot star has an emotional and spiritual connotation, as well as a physical meaning.

(Faro, for any that don’t know, is an orphan caught up in the preceding traumatic events.)

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In the approximately eighteen months between completing writing Daughter of Blood and the book being published, I was asked to identify: “The most important lesson you have learned in the process of becoming and being a published author?”

Given the question’s connotations and Daughter being very much on my mind at the time, it may not surprise you that “pilot star” featured in my answer:

“Just this: it’s the story that matters. It’s your only pilot star.“

I hope my meaning may be self-explanatory, but what I was thinking of was the often long, solitary (so yes, sometimes lonely!) slog of writing a book in the first place, and then getting it through production and into the world.

Even then, once writing, production, and publication are all a “wrap”, there is no assurance of fair winds and following seas—sales may not be steady, reviews may be hard to come by and not all will be favourable, so building a readership may prove proverbially tough.

Production: first-pass-proof manuscript

So what I was—and am still—saying is that it’s vital a writer feel passionate and positive about the story they’re telling, because it’s only that passion, commitment, and love of the work itself that will keep the project on course and get the author through the rough patches.

I would go further and say that in my (potentially misguided! :D) view it’s all any author can truly rely upon, since everything else is either ephemeral or outside our control, or both.

In lieu of road & other maps, a pilot star may be all one has…

*~*

Previous Bulletins From Inside The Writing Life:

• A Little About The Writing Itself
• About Those Muses, Then…
• Naturally Self-Isolating
• Writing Novels, Posting Blogs
• Another Milestone Ticked Off
• A Game Of Two Halves
• Further Reflection on Writing Transitions
• Fun With Friends
• Those Moments Of “Grr-Argh”
• Sometimes It’s A Case Of “Oh Frabjous Day!
• “O Frabjous Day” Reprised
• Listening To The Silence
• Characters Behaving Badly
• Many Placemarkers
• The Authorial Break
• Of Puzzles and Gardens
• Wrangling The Roadblocks
• Inside The Writing Life: The 3 C’s & Contrary Muses — But Hold On…
• “It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged…”
• Channeling The Wind In The Willows
• Reflections On Writing As Vocation
• The Tao of Writing: The Book That Can Be Spoken Of Is Not The Book

“I know” – March! The year is already flying by – but that does mean we’re getting to the first of the month and moar Supernatural Underground goodness more quickly!

(All of which is not to overlook some of the other great posts in the meantime, to which end, check out the links below.)

Meanwhile, back to my Band of Brothers theme. 😀 Last month I discussed the prevalence of the “band of brothers” in myth and legend, folklore and fairytale, and its unsurprising transition into the fantasy genre – and maybe epic fantasy in particular, but we’ll get a clearer handle on that as the series progresses.

Classic epic — & a “band of brothers” to boot!

This month, I’ve focused on some of the seminal examples of “bands and brothers”, but also the “Scooby gang” variant, in Fantasy fiction. To find out more, click on:

Celebrating The ‘Band of Brothers” in Fantasy #2

The Last Airbender goes the “Scooby gang” route

Otherwise, here are those links to some other great Supernatural Underground posts:

• The End – More Than Meets The Eye
• 2023: Call To Adventure 2.0
• Loving Stories Within Stories
• 2023: Year of Re-Imagining

The Hero’s Journey

Recently, when addressing (the great!) Margaret Atwood’s “a word after a word after a word is power” I also quoted Lao Tzu’s “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, relating it to how a book begins and ends with a single word.

(But oh my, it’s the betwixt and in-between of that first and last word, dear friends, as we – that’s me and thee, not the royal we 😉 – know all too well!)

All of which, together with another recent refeature on Writing As Vocation, put me in mind of a post from 2014, which also focuses on a Lao Tzu quote:

“The Way that can be spoken of is not the Way.”

As noted then, “one interpretation of this is that the Tao or Way that can be spoken of or described is not the true Tao, which by implication can only be directly experienced.”

Handwritten beginnings for “Thornspell”

The reason I titled the original post, and today’s refeature, “The Tao Of Writing: The Book That Can Be Spoken Of Is Not the Book” is because I felt then that the spirit of the Tao Te Ching quote is directly applicable to writing—that until the book is done and can be directly experienced by readers, then there is little of merit to talk about. And because books that are still being written are by their very nature fluid and elusive, I also felt that trying to talk about them in any meaningful way is counterproductive—and may actually do harm to that fluid, elusive, but also fragile process of creativity.

Work in Progress: WALL2 style…

All of which is why I’m always reluctant to talk about or post on the book and writing progress while it still is a work-in-progress. In short, I fear jinxing the process. And sometimes it does feel like that’s exactly what happens, i.e. I post that I’m in such-and-such a stage, then get bogged down in it for weeks afterward! (Which is, to be honest, just the writing process, but I’m aware that from the outside that must feel like writing time bears a close correlation to its geological and astronomical counterparts!)

Knocking off those sections, one by one…

Anyway, although I’ve striven to overcome my fear of jinxing the process in order to provide more regular updates for WALL #4, as well as posting the occasional snippet from “inside the writing life”, part of me will always be attuned to Lao Tzu’s wisdom regarding the Way (not quite the same as the Mandalorian “way” 😉 ) and the parallel caution regarding speaking too much of books while they’re still works-in-progress.

Nope, not “that” way either 😀

On which note… No, not going there, since I did a mini update recently, which is still an accurate enough summation of the current trajectory.

Besides, it being Monday and officially the start of a new working week, I’d best eschew (great word!) further posting and hie me to the writing desk! Otherwise, stay as well and safe as you can everyone, wherever you are and whatever you’re currently doing.

The writing desk waits…

Marion Drolsbach, translator extraordinaire 🙂

Just a reminder in case you’ve missed instalments #1 and #2, but this post series is featuring photos taken by Marion Drolsbach when she visited NZ late last year.

Marion is a book translator and we e-met when she translated The Heir of Night into Dutch. She is also a keen photographer and the photos were taken at the mouth of one of Canterbury’s many braided rivers.

As mentioned last time, I particularly love the bird life we saw that day –  and today’s little guy is one of NZ’s most endangered birds, the wrybill plover or ngutuparore. Its most distinctive feature is the “wry” or laterally-curved bill, which always bends to the right. I understand it is the only bird in the world with such a bill – if you enlarge, you should see the bend.

Wrybill plover; ngutuparore

The wrybill is a wading bird and lives and breeds in the shingle braids of Canterbury’s rivers, which makes it particularly vulnerable to NZ’s introduced predators (e.g. cats, dogs, mustelids, and rats) – and of course the collateral damage of humans themselves.

I love seeing them in lagoons and riverbeds in exactly the way Marion has captured in these photos. Yet in addition to the intensification of adjoining land and water use, the transition of rivermouth communities from holiday homes to permanent residents (as people seek cheaper places to live) also means a proliferation of dogs and particularly cats (which are allowed to roam more freely) so I fear the pressure on these unique and already endangered birds is only going to increase.

Despite that gloomy note, I hope you enjoy your encounter with ngutuparore.

Check out the feet!

It’s over two years now since I featured Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth (Locked Tomb #1) in my worldbuilding series on Supernatural Underground.

Since then I’ve read Harrow the Ninth (but just didn’t get around to posting on it — mea culpa!) Today, though, I’m reporting in on Nona the Ninth, Book Three in the Locked Tomb series.

Nona picks up right where Harrow left off, re-immersing readers in the Locked Tomb’s space-spanning world of necromancers and lyctors, undead legions and  Resurrection Beasts. Readers also re-meet characters met before in Gideon and Harrow (I’m not saying exactly who because that might count as a spoiler) as well as some equally interesting new ones.

In fact, there are some really great characters in Nona, starting with Nona herself. Author Alix E Harrow‘s cover tagline is that, “You will love Nona, and Nona loves you.” Unquestionably, both statements are true: I did love Nona’s character, and Nona pretty much loves everyone. In part, this is because she doesn’t know who she is (those with her are trying to help her find out) so has a very young mental age—and some of those other great new characters are the kids in the school where she is a teaching assistant.

One of the things I feel Tamsyn Muir captures really well in Nona is the “voices” and personalities of the children, with their mix of naivete and street wisdom, including the boundaries that shift between unstinting generosity, bargaining, and uncompromising harshness. Nona also contains a sequence that explains the background events that created the Locked Tomb world—expect themes of climate change and social division. NZ readers may particularly enjoy the distinctively Kiwi setting to this backstory. 🙂

The characters are great and the story rocks along, an aspect that brings readers closer to the ethos of Gideon than Harrow, with its more complex narrative. My only reservation is one that continues from reading Harrow, which is that I’m slightly perplexed over the plot and how aspects of the world hang together. (No pun intended, given those skeletons. 😀 )

Obviously, with a final book yet to come (working title: Alecto the Ninth) readers can reasonably expect such perplexities to work themselves out. Alternatively, my plot-wrangling “slip” may be showing. Either way, Nona is a fun read and I have no hesitation in recommending it to you.

Also obviously, if you’re already a Tamsyn Muir fan I have little doubt you’re going to love Nona, too. For those who’re not familiar with the series, I believe that if you’ve enjoyed World War Z by Max Brooks, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill by Steven Brust, or The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, then the Locked Tomb series may well appeal, too.

Disclosure: I read an uncorrected proof edition supplied by the publisher, TOR DOTCOM’s South Island representative — a trade paperback equivalent clocking in at 477 pages.

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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 still traversing the letter “M”, but I’m “pretty sure” this is the penultimate entry. 😀

—

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Mykon Ambard: envoy from the Assassin’s Guild to the Conclave of Ij, on the River; nephew to the prince of the House of Ilvaine

“What does it matter what some commander or other does on the Derai Wall?” Mykon Ambard demanded. “We have more than enough to concern us here in Ij.”

 “Especially this morning,” murmured the prince. “But still—a Master must know something of the world around him.”

Mykon Ambard looked as though he would like to argue, but before he could speak, Leto Ilvaine dashed up on a fine dun courser. “The column is ready for you to join it, my prince.”

~ from © The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall Of Night Book Two – Chapter 10, A Pebble Falls

” A word after a word after a word is power”

~ Margaret Atwood

~*~

Kate Forsyth identifies this as one of her favourite writing quotes and it does resonate with me as well. Especially right now when “a word after a word after a word” is exactly how I’m getting the work-in-progress and WALL series done — as discussed in the “mini update” two weeks ago.

I would probably add that the words need to be to some purpose, but I don’t think there’s any doubt of that in the case of either Margaret Atwood or Kate Forsyth. 😀

This quote does remind me of the very famous quote from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching:

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I’ve often thought how apt this is in relation to writing books, which begin and end with a single word — but Margaret Atwood is quite right that the journey between the two is the business of “a word after a word after a word.”

And when they all hang together to good effect, i.e. they reach their final form of Coleridge’s “words in their best order”, then yep, there is a power in that — if only in the author’s heart and mind. 😉

Proof manuscript

Well, I mulled (as per my Happy New Year post) and I have decided on a theme for 2023 on Supernatural Underground (SU) — which as the title has doubtless already conveyed, is a closer look at the “band of brothers” in fantasy fiction.

Unfortunately I wasn’t in a good spot for loading blog posts on February 1, so postponed the initial post until Monday 6, but it’s definitely at the top o’ the SU masthead currently:

Honing In On 2023 — & Celebrating the “Band of Brothers” in Fantasy.

Tom Hiddleston as Henry V

I suspect the “happy few, we band of brothers” is a trope that could rightly be included in the Having Fun With Epic Fantasy post series — but its sibling, the “Scooby gang” is equally entrenched in the wider genre so a dedicated post series is probably justified. 😀

The Crows (Shadow and Bone)

Anyway, to find out more, just click on the link above and dive in. Enjoy!

Today being Waitangi Day, it seems very fitting to be posting on a book by Patricia Grace.

I have talked about her writing here before, including in several other Waitangi Day posts over the years — unsurprisingly given she is one of New Zealand’s most well-known authors.

The book I’m focusing on today is Dogside Story, but I have been an enthusiast for Patricia Grace’s writing since reading her first novel, Mutuwhenua: the Moon Sleeps. I loved both the story and storytelling, but one of the reasons it had a profound effect was my feeling that it was one of the first novels I had read that really spoke to me of a New Zealand I recognized.

Since then, I’ve read other novels by Patrica Grace, notably Potiki and Tu, but not Dogside Story, so I was pleased to have the opportunity when a friend recommended it to me.

Whanau (family and extended family) and community, specifically Maori communities, are the core of every Patricia Grace novel I’ve read, and this is the case with Dogside Story as well. The story centres on the parentage and custody of Kid (Kiri), a process that ends exposing family secrets, threatens to divide the whanau, and eventually involves the entire community.

It’s also a story of a small community struggling to survive, and of the new millennium—but it’s heart is the people, not just the central characters, but all the people that comprise the Dogside whanau. By the way, if you’re wondering “why Dogside?”, readers quickly learn there are two connected whanau, one nicknamed “Godside”, the other “Dogside” — but this book is a Dogside story. 😀

The main point-of-view character is Rua, Kid’s father. Yet in many ways, I felt that real main character was the whanau itself, and the interwoven lives of all those affected by Kiri’s lineage and the custody dispute.

Dogside Story offers insight into the intricacies, strengths, and weaknesses of whanau and small Maori communities, although I suspect these can only be truly understood from the inside. Yet it’s also a very human story of love and grief, cruelty and generosity, division and healing, which connects to us all.

I enjoyed Dogside Story and can understand why it’s a favourite in my friend’s library (if not the favourite) but I suspect Mutuwhenua will always hold first place in my heart—and it’s very hard to go past Tu. 😀

Whenever I post on a book I’ve enjoyed reading, I try and link it to works of like type, to offer  potential readers further insight into the kind of story being told. I found this challenging with Dogside Story, because the work is so uniquely Patricia Grace and a story with deep roots in Aotearoa (New Zealand.) The only immediately obvious companions are Witi Ihmaera novels such as Whanau, Tangi, and Bulibasha.

However, after much consideration, I believe those who’ve enjoyed books such as Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, with its focus on an impoverished, closeknit, but also fractious Italian community, or Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, which turns a similar lens on contemporary rural Appalachian communites, may also enjoy Dogside Story.

I read my friend’s copy, which is the mass market paperback edition, 301 pages, published by Penguin Books NZ in 2001.