Yesterday's post was a catch up piece that I left in a draft mode back when when I was totally clueless.  I've found a few clues since then.  I'm still scratching my way up the internet learning curve.  Anyway,  back to first pages. . .

Been reading a lot of first pages and thinking like an agent.  I totally get it. (Did I just use 'totally' again? My god, two identical adverbs within two paragraphs.  I'll never get published writing like that.)

 Anyway, back to first pages. . .   There are many scenes in the tale where Matty is pressed with important decisions, many when he is in danger, many where he is helpless; but just as many where he wins, overcomes,avoids or solves the situations.  Throughout the story, he is disciplined by his father, grandfather, aunt, older brother, rebels from Sligo, he is chased by gallowglasses in th employment of an Anglo-Norman Earl, again by Scottish soldiers, and yet again by Roundheads.  Tension?  Hell, yes!  But where to start.  Should I work chronologically and start with an early threat during Matty's childhood? Or later perhaps, when he is working with his brother on the lake fishing to help the family income. But some falshbacks in the story to get the family's back story?  Too cliche?

I'll figure it out.  Any suggestions?  Comments welcome. . . very welcome

FAR

The USA enters the Space Age

This was originally carried in a Jaycee newsletter, I wanted to start the blog with this a long time ago, but somehow failed to post it.  Computer literate, yet computer stupid.


Random Thoughts Recorded During the Week of July 20, 1969 During the Flight of Apollo 11

The LEM touched down on the lunar surface

A commercial pilot, stacked over O’Hare heard the news and was glad

All men on Earth witnessed as the Eagle landed.

Nearby, Luna 15, on an unexplained mission, also landed.

Armstrong and Aldrin placed their footprints in the dust and their names in the history books,

While 240,000 miles away, earthmen watched every step.

69 miles away, Cooper, flying Columbia, didn’t have a video monitor.

The whole world watched, awe struck, and waited.

Many Americans missed their regular TV programs, and complained.

The crime rate was down.  Criminals became interested viewers.

The AFS students at Lindenbaum’s called a recess to their love-in, and for a while, they too were interested.

While the Astronauts work on the moon, five ghetto children sit with their mother in a bare flat (third floor rear) watching on a color TV.

They do not understand.  Their fathers are not there to explain it all to them.  They are bored.

They go to bed ----- hungry!

Eagle came “in peace for all mankind”.

Both sides counted their dead in Viet Nam

Over a million in tools is left on the moon.

Another child starved to death in Biafra.

The return cargo, a priceless box of dirt, rocks and secrets.

Another rock, bearing the secrets of a black man’s soul, smashes a window in York Pa.

The Hornet crew earns their “E” for a flawless recovery.

During reentry and splash down, had a crisis arisen, would the crew or the cargo be saved?

A family in a hospital waiting room watches through wet eyes, the elaborate decontamination process to protect the earth from possible lunar bacteria.

Nearby, in a clean darkened room, one of their own, numbed by drugs, quietly succumbs to cancer.

The door to the universe swings open, and rushing to go through, man stumbles on the clutter of his world

Writing Workshop Experience

Anyone interested in writing anything they hope to publish should avail themselves of an opportunity like I recently experienced.  The workshop focus was the middle ground between the skill of writing and the business of writing.  The presentations and discussions included query letters, pitching to agents, first pages, blogging and other platforms to get your name 'out there'. 

They called for anonymous pages to be submitted.  I submitted.  Submissions were drawn at random.  Mine was drawn. The moderator read aloud the pages drawn.  Three professional agents listened, and were instructed to raise their hand when, if they were reading this page in their office, they would stop and put the submission in either the slush pile or the trash can.  When two of the three hands were raised, the moderator stopped reading for a debrief.  Two hands were raised before the third paragraph of my page was read.  Of course, I felt crushed. But listening to the rationale from the agents put a band aid on my ego.  My intent for my opening was to create a sense of peace and tranquility that would soon change as Matty grew older.  But their point was that there was nothing to grab the reader's attention and make them really want to turn the page to see what was happening next.  My first page was slow and boring.  They were right.

I pulled some of my favorite authors' books off the shelves at the library and I got it.  In their first pages told who was the main character, what was the setting for the action, what is the actions and why the reader should care. My first page started with:

Chapter 1
County Leitrim, Ireland, September 1633

The agent's said "You should never do that!"

So I pulled a good book by one of my favorite authors and looked to find that Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth"  Starts with a similar 'time and place' inscription, and ironically, Follett is represented by the agency of one of the folks doing the critiquing.  Oh well.  Follett is an established author, and i suppose that success breeds latitude is the judging eyes of agents. 

More the reason to get busy and expand my platform, focus on editing, rewriting, and prepping for the time when I am ready to query an agent and pitch my book for a specific genre.  If I can ever figure out what that might be.  Should I go tradutional or self publish?  Should it be a hardback or an e-book, or go right for a screen play?

That's a topic for another time.  Writing is now sliced and diced into what seems like an infinite number of pigeon holes for authors to decipher. Is the book a novel or a memoir? Is it literary?  Is it romance, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, erotica?  Is it children's,  young adult, new adult, male, female? 

Ready?  Set?  Pitch!

Gird your loins for criticism, it doesn't hurt for long.

Meanwhile, I'm going back to my novel.

FR

Where? Why? and When?

I chose to start the story of Matty O'Doole in County Leitrim in the west of Ireland for a somewhat selfish reason. The little genealogical information I have, and a bit of history I've learned suggests that Leitrim might well have been the source of my family name. One of my favorite Irish singers, Sean Tyrrell, first told me of Tiernan O'Ruairc, Prince of Breffni. The site of O'Ruairc's Castle, (now called Parkes' Castle) on Lough Gill in the County Leitrim presented an opportunity to set Matty's story there while concurrently doing some 'roots searching'.

So much for the 'where and why'. But why in the first half of the 1600's? Ireland's tumultuous history never lacked for tension, stress and turmoil, but that period offered what I determined to be the best starting point for a converging path to ultimately intersect with the Choctaw culture. And the confusion of the period presented a challenge for Matty's coming of age. From the plantation of protestants in Ulster to the 1641 Rebellion, to the execution of Charles I during the Civil War in England. Matty and his family were constantly torn in terms of their allegiances to Ireland and the Catholic church.

First fighting against the king and later fighting against the king's parliamentarian enemies kept the Irish off balance. Historic Irish leader, Owen Roe O'Neill, well trained in military tactics while in exile in Spain, returned to Ireland to  lead the rebellion.  Again off balance, some called O'Neill a hero, and others labeled him 'traitor' when he tried to obtain the peace through a treaty.  The same enigma revisited later in Irish history in the person of Michael Collins.

Tough times indeed, Matty. ...... Good luck to you, lad.

Misappropriation

Quite simply, misappropriation is using something in a way that is inaccurate in terms of when, where and why events occur; or in a way that is hurtful or defaming to a specific historical character or group or culture.

A writer who is serious about historical fiction needs to decide how closely the story's characters will interact with the real historical figures and events.  The closer the interaction, the higher the risk of misappropriating information about places,events and the lives of people who actually were alive in a specific period of history.  Ergo, a serious historical novelist must be a writer who loves research.

A well researched historical novel, with a credible bibliography becomes a source of accurate information to any writer focused on the same period or culture.  One of my favorite historical novelist is Morgan Llywelyn.  In my opinion, she has mastered the art of weaving a tale of fictional characters in the same fabric as historical characters in a respectful and professional way.

Sadly, I have also read novels that represent themselves as 'historical' when the story lacks the credibility of time, place and culture, and the plot spins in an illogical way that borders on fantasy.
True, fiction writers have 'license' to be creative.  If it's a period piece you are writing, and research is not your thing, tag your piece as adventure genre and forgo 'historical',  lest you be haunted by charges of misappropriation .

Two distinct cultures with similar histories

Writing historical fiction takes passion.  Concurrently, it is both exciting and daunting.  One must be thoroughly immersed in the culture of the characters and the period of the setting.  My passion since high school has been with the plight of the indigenous peoples of our hemisphere.  My passion as an adult has been in discovering my own roots and heritage, which I've come to assume without positive proof to be Irish.

That said, imagine my excitement when I began to see similarities betwen the two cultures.  The more research I did the more parallels I uncovered.  Both survived constant invasions from foreigners, but were steadfast in trying to hold on to their land and beliefs.  Both assimilated invaders into their cultures.  Both had theologies tied to the land, shamanic and druidic.  Christian missionaries influenced their histories.  Mounds in Tara and Mississippi still confound archeologist for explanations.  Invaders brought their wars with them,and ultimately got help from both the Irish and the Indians in their respective lands. Future references to "Indians" in this blog will focus on the Choctaw Nation.  Disputes between Irish clans and Choctaw neighboring tribes weakened their military ability to challenge invaders.  Defeat led to enslavement.  The list goes on and the message is clear, their similar history predicts their ultimate fate.

Matty's story flows to  the meeting of Irish and Choctaw.  A compelling tale!

Ready now to get serious

So, the last post in 2013.  If anybody looked, anybody at all, they likely thought I died.  Well, I didn't.  Some things took place.  Revisit Phil Ochs song "Changes", (the Christy Moore version is a good one), and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I've learned a bunch of stuff lately, so I decided to try to pump life back into this blog.  I been doing it all wrong.  Mostly dumping a bunch of old stuff and salting it every now and then with something new.  But here's my new approach.  This blog will now be dedicated to promoting the book I am writing.  I pitched the story to an agent at a recent writer's workshop, and I can only say he didn't seem disinterested.  So here's the deal; I'm going to put the creative paddles on the chest of this seemingly dead blog spot, and turn on the juice to see if anyone can detect a heartbeat.

My heart is wrapped around my story of Mathe (Matty) O'Doole, coming of age in Ireland in the 17th century.  From Amergin, the Milesian bard to Maewyn Succat, the son of a Roman magistrate, to the mythical Finn McCool, growing up in Ireland has never been easy.

In truth and in legend, Ireland has been a land of turmoil, invasions, battles, treachery and war since the island drifted away for the Eurasian continent.  The original Firbolg name of 'Eueriio' evolved to Eriu, Eire, Erin, and finally 'Ireland'.  The Romans were smart enough to call it Hibernia, and leave it alone.

It was into this land of perpetual turmoil that Matty O'Doole was born in 1633.