Guest author: Charles E. Yallowitz – Who’s in charge?

Charles Yallowitz is visiting Sue Vincent, with an interesting discussion about writing series and reader input. Head on over and check it out!

Sue Vincent's avatarSue Vincent's Daily Echo

apocalypse-1325398_1280Thanks to Sue for letting me be a guest on her blog. Normally, I would be writing about fantasy or something magical because that’s my main genre.  Yet, it isn’t my only one and I have my smaller world to touch on this time.  In a few weeks, I will be releasing the sequel to Crossing Bedlam and diving back into the realm of adult language, wild violence, dystopian landscapes, insane characters, and sexual innuendos.  This tends to be my downtime project because it doesn’t have the heaviness of my other series.  I get to wrap myself in the crazy fun and just go along for the ride.

I should probably explain what this series is about before I go any further.  This is a world where the United States of America has collapsed because it appears the rest of the world voted to put them in a timeout.  Canada…

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Thursday Doors – The British Museum, London

img_4661It’s Thursday, and time for another door. This week, I have a very very old door. It currently lives in The British Museum, London, but over four millennia ago was part of someone’s tomb. This is the false-door of Ptashepses.

Made from limestone around 2380BC, the door is of a type common in tombs of that period, and was excavated in Saqquara, Egypt. The heiroglyphics state that Ptashepses was the High Priest of Ptah, and one of the royal children during the reigns of Menkaure and Shepseskaf in the Fourth Dynasty. The door stands over three and a half metres high, and is in the Egyptian Hall at the Museum, along with other wonderful artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone.

img_4656As a bonus, here is one of the exterior Museum doors with a very imperious looking lion standing guard.

img_4664 I know this is a doorway, rather than a door, but I rather liked the quote above it. Very appropriate considering the surroundings, which is why I suppose they chose it.img_4665Finally, a shot of the interior Great Court, and the lovely glass roof.

This was my response to the Thursday Doors Challenge, courtesy of Norm 2.0. For more doors, or to add one of your own, visit Norm’s site and click the link.

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

Wednesday Wander – Powell St Cable Car, San Francisco

img_0315When we were visiting San Francisco just over a year ago, we took a ride on the famous Powell Street Cable Car.

img_0316The cable car operates between downtown San Francisco and the waterfront, and is one of the last hand-operated cable car systems in the world. Operators use a system of levers to drive the trams, and the brake blocks, which are made of Douglas Fir, have to be replaced every few days. Passengers (which included us), sit along seats on the outside, or just hang on to one of the poles. There are no seatbelts or barriers – you basically just have to hang on as you rattle through the streets, especially on the steep hills. It’s great fun.

img_0318And, when you reach the end, the bay and Golden Gate Bridge are there in front of you, all mountains and blue water. There is something about the Pacific West Coast of North America – it has a feel like nowhere else I’ve been in the world. The cities seem to perch precariously between the water and sky, as though nature has only been held back temporarily and could return at any time.

Thanks for coming on another Wednesday Wander with me – see you next week!

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

Snow Day

img_4919It snowed here on Friday. And Saturday too. Proper snow, like fat feathers falling from the sky, swirling around and settling on trees and pavements and rooftops. The schools didn’t close and life continued pretty much as usual, but it snowed.

I love snow. If you’ve ever watched the Gilmore Girls, you’ll know that Lorelei Gilmore can sense when the first snow is coming. She smiles in anticipation, hugging herself as she says ‘I can smell snow,’ like it’s some wonderful gift she’s about to be given. I feel the same way about it, though I don’t quite have the same snow sense as she does. Snow is soft and, when it falls, if the wind is just right, you can stand there and watch it float and dance around you like specks of magic. I don’t feel the same way about rain at all. You can’t make rain angels.

img_1020I lived in Ontario for many years and it only takes stepping on a frozen puddle and hearing it crack to take me back to the first winter we lived there, when the temperature dropped well below zero and snow was piled so high at the end of the driveway we dug into it and made a snow cave. I remember the novelty of heavy boots and all-in-one snowsuits, of ice skating on a frozen pond, tobogganing at night and putting on my cross country skis to ski around my neighbourhood. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my brother listening to the radio, waiting to hear whether school was closed and we had a snow day. I also remember being at work one day and coming out to find my car almost completely buried in snow, and another day where I’d left the window slightly open and ended up with a snowdrift on the back seat.

img_4910I met my husband at the snow. Both of us working at a ski resort, the violet lit slopes and winter cold a perfect backdrop to romance. And so when the clouds gather and the first flakes start to fall I’m taken back. To a time as a child when snow seemed to last forever, lit with fairy lights. To a time when my life changed in wonderful ways. Oh, I know snow gets dirty and slushy and tedious after a while, but there is wonder in the first fresh fall, the glitter of light and the unique beauty in each and every snowflake.

I hope it snows again soon.

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

#writephoto – Swansong

birds-se-ilkley-2015-uffington-avebury-hackpen-worcester-3Sue Vincent’s weekly #writephoto challenge is one of my favourite writing prompts. Her photos are always evocative and inspire a wide range of responses, as though she’s captured a little piece of storytelling magic in each image. Perhaps she has…

Here is my response to this week’s photo:

Swansong

They call it a swansong

Our last brave moments

Like a song sung

on a dying breath, beautiful

Haunting notes across the water

A requiem

 

To me it is sadness

A lament for the end

A wish for things to stay

as they always were, golden

Sunlit glimmers on the water

Don’t leave me

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

Thursday Doors – Aldwych, London

img_2429It’s Thursday, and time for Norm 2.0’s weekly Thursday Doors Challenge. This week I have a photo of a door I took last summer but forgot about – I found it while scrolling through my photo library looking for something else.

img_2430There were a few reasons I took a photo of this door. One is its size – you can’t really tell from the photo but it’s huge, well over two metres tall. I also liked the lion head door pulls. But I really liked the inscription over the door, and the way the word ‘North’ seems to have been added as an afterthought. It made me wonder about why that could have happened – was it because they built another, more easterly wing and had to rename this door? Or did they check the direction after the door was put in and realise it was wrong? Or does the interior of the building move independently of the door, so while it originally led into the East Wing, subsequent movements have now made it the entrance to the North East Wing. Hmmm.

There might even be a story in that…

This has been my response to Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors Challenge. For more doors, or to add one of your own, visit Norm’s site and click the link.

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

Wednesday Wander, Sacre Coeur, Paris

sacre-coeur-1It’s my birthday in a few weeks’ time, and I’m very excited about it. Not so much for the event itself – I mean, I still quite like birthdays, but they do seem to be adding up in recent years. The reason I’m so excited is that one of my best friends from Australia is coming for a visit, and she and I are going to Paris for the weekend. We’ve booked rooms in a charming small hotel where we’ve both stayed before, although not at the same time, we have seats on the Eurostar, and really, it’s going to be lovely.

The hotel we’re staying in is not far from the Montmartre district and the imposing dome of Sacre Coeur. There is also a nearby street market where, last time I visited, oranges still with their leaves were piled high on tables, while the scent of fresh bread and raspberries filled the air.

sacre-coeur-2Construction on Sacre Coeur, or Sacred Heart, started in 1875 and was completed in 1914. Built as both penance and memorial for the 1871 defeat of French troops during the Franco-Prussian War, the basilica is located high on a hill overlooking Paris. It’s a beautiful building and the interior is spectacular, with four huge stone angels inside the large dome looking down at the worshippers – however, I wasn’t able to take any photographs. A perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has continued uninterrupted there since 1885, and so for that reason visitors are asked to dress appropriately, be as quiet as possible and take no interior photos, so as not to disturb the worshippers.

The view outside is also spectacular, and you can see Paris in all directions. My then four-year-old daughter took the photo below – I think the view impressed her too.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Paris again, and hope to visit a few other destinations this year. Of course, I’ll share them with you. Thanks for coming on this Wednesday Wander with me – see you next time!

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

Walking A Tangled Path

img_2083I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog front of late. Partly because I think I’m still recovering from the Thirty Day Writing Challenge, partly because I’ve actually been recovering from a nasty lingering cold that’s been running rampant around here (even the Queen had it), and partly because I’ve been trying to untangle the structure of Under Stone, the fourth book in my Ambeth series.

I wrote the first draft of Under Stone more than three years ago. Since then it’s undergone quite a few edits and rewrites, then was sidelined for a while as I worked on other projects. Now that A Thousand Rooms is out I’m free to roam the forests once more, but the path to this story is still quite tangled.

As the fourth book in the series, Under Stone pulls together a lot of the plot lines set out in books one to three, so I’ve had to do a quick re-read of those books and make sure that I’ve covered everything. Even though Ambeth, the characters, their motivations and their plot lines all live in my head, there are small details I’ve added here and there that I need to keep track of. So far, so good. However, the story itself also needed re-ordering, so I’ve been shuffling scenes around and, in some cases, deleting them.

Making this slightly more complex is the fact that Ambeth deals with multiple character viewpoints. I know, right? A six book series told from the point of view of multiple characters. *shakes head* Also there’s a time twisting element, which sometimes is useful and sometimes really annoying (for the writer), as I have to keep track of what is happening when in two different worlds. But oh, I love it. I love the stories and the characters, and I love it when it all comes together and I can feel the flow. I guess that’s part of the reason I write, for that feeling – it’s a little bit like joy.

I think I’m pretty close to being done now. In fact, I’m hoping I might even be able to get it out to beta readers by the end of this month. So I’ll continue to slash and burn, moving branches and reshuffling scenes, forging a new path through the tangles in the hope I reach my destination soon.

How about you? When you write a story, do you then play around with the order of events to get the best flow? And, if you’ve written a series, how do you keep track of everything? (Notes. It’s notes, isn’t it? I really ought to make more notes when I’m writing.)

If you enjoyed this post, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

 

#writephoto – Gold – The Third Time We Choose

golden-dawnSue Vincent has chosen yet another gorgeous photo for her #writephoto prompt this week, and here is my response:

The Third Time We Choose

She was scared.

Terrified, if she was being honest. But she’d known she couldn’t take another minute stuck in that place. It had felt so good walking into her manager’s office, seeing the surprise on his sweaty hated face when she’d told him she was leaving.

Good luck to him. Or not. She really hadn’t cared at the time, the bubble of euphoria in her chest lasting until she’d got home and put the key in the door and remembered ‘he’ was there. No doubt half asleep on the sofa as usual, half-empty beer cradled in his slack hands. He’d been handsome, once, she remembered. Taking her breath away. But now all he took was what was left of her spirit.

Enough.

Before she’d been able think about it, before he’d heard her at the door, she’d pulled the key out and turned back to the car. Getting in, she’d put it into gear and driven off, not looking back. Again with that bubble in her chest, like champagne bursts of potential, of what could be.

But once again it had dissipated and now here she was, driving along a country lane going who knows where. She should just pull over, she thought. Take a moment to figure out what she was going to do. Maybe even turn around and go home. After all, it wasn’t so bad, was it?

She started to slow the car, the bubble in her chest replaced by the leaden grey of reality. Then, as the road ahead of her curved, golden light, like champagne, like flames, like the promise of a life yet to live, shone through the tunnel of trees, a beacon leading her on.

It felt like freedom. Speeding up again, she drove towards the light, making her choice for the third time.

For herself.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

A Productive Day and A #ThursdayDoor

I had a very productive writing day today. The kidlet went back to school and (even though I missed her) I managed to clear a bit of clutter out of my office, plus take a walk in the freezing cold sunshine. And it seemed to pay off. A nagging structural issue in Under Stone (Ambeth book four) that had been plaguing me for the past two months was finally resolved. Plus I managed to catch up on a few other bits and pieces, which was nice.

I wanted to write a blog post as well and, as it’s Thursday, thought I might post a Thursday Door. It’s been a little while since I’ve done so, though I did have a few door photos hanging around – I think the blogging challenge I did last month threw me a little bit off course.

Anyway, I digress. Here is my door:

img_2509It’s a rather nice church door, isn’t it? And here is the church:

img_2527As you can see, it’s missing a few components like a roof, an aisle and any sort of interior. This is St Dunstan of The East, a Norman church in the heart of old London. Built around 1100, the church was damaged in the Great Fire of 1666, after which a tower and steeple designed by Christopher Wren was added. However, when the Church was badly damaged during the WWII Blitz, it was decided not to rebuild and, in 1970, it was opened as a public park.

img_2526It’s a tiny park, as parks go – about the size of the ground floor of an office block. But it is a magical space, twined with ivy, glassless windows looking out onto modern London, an oasis of calm seemingly out of time.

img_2503This was my response to the Thursday Doors Challenge, courtesy of Norm 2.0. For more doors, or to add one of your own, head over to Norm’s site and click the link.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.