Nothing to Say

This week has been super slow on the writing front, but not for lack of trying. I graduated a week ago today, spent Sunday bidding Anchorage adieu, and flew back to Colorado super early Monday morning, complete with a budding cold. After not even twenty four hours at home, I got on another plane to Boise, Idaho for a video shoot with my dad (he's working on training videos for cable installers at the moment, in case you were curious), and returned home yesterday morning. At the moment, I'm still sick, but slowly getting better. I hope to get back on the Writing Bus today or tomorrow, and start up the Looking For A Job truck as soon as I feel better.

Sorry for the short post this week, friends. Hopefully, next week will be longer and more on topic!

Early!

I'm updating a few days early this week because I'm not sure if I'll be able to make my normal Saturday update on account of graduation that day. That's right, folks, I'll finally have that BA in liberal studies with a concentration in writing that I've been claiming in my query letters (I figured with a  month or so left before graduation, I could basically say that I had a degree, right?). On top of the ceremony and subsequent celebrations, I'm also getting kicked out of the dorms, showing my parents around Anchorage and getting ready for a flight back to Colorado. Busy, busy, busy.

This week, I'm also going to skip an excerpt (though I assure you, I've been working very hard; I rewrote an entire chapter and, after months of mucking about in the Land of the Unmotivated, that was a very big deal), and talk about this article. For those who won't click on the link: basically, a high school English teacher was found to be writing and publishing erotica on the side. I, personally, am not a huge fan of erotica, but I fail to see how in the world it should affect this teacher's classroom. She didn't expose the students to it, use them in the book, or even talk about it until some parent found out and flipped. Doesn't a teacher have a right to her own life, too? I mean, they have homes and private space for a reason. Right? Okay, I can understand bringing a teacher under fire if he or she is having an affair with a student, or is dealing drugs to the students, or is a mass murderer or something, but for writing something she enjoys writing? And under a pseudonym, no less!

In all honesty, this kind of freaks me out. If I were to become a teacher for any reason (not likely, but let's roll with it), and some parent found out I write gay romance, could I be brought under fire for preaching homosexuality? Even if I only wrote on my own time, never talked about it with the students, never brought the school into it, etc. etc.? When did asking teachers to separate their school lives and their private lives become asking them to deny their private lives, their desires and goals, altogether? It just doesn't seem right to me.

Oljiru kovy.

Writing on Shadows

As of right now, I think I'm going to tweak this blog just a little bit to include excerpts of what I've written every week. Unless I have something really, really interesting to say (like, for instance, the last query event of April at WriteOnCon is on Monday, wish me luck!), or some other insight into the writing business. When it get closer to time for the conferences I'll be attending this year, I'll likely be writing a lot about those; but for the moment, things are slow enough to simply post bits and pieces of my work, thanks to graduation and moving and all that fun stuff.

So, a bit of what I've been working on. Last week, I went on a school trip to the Anchorage zoo, and we attended a seminar about wolves after our little tour. It got me really inspired to write something wolfish, but I wanted to steer clear of werewolves and simply writing from the wolf's perspective. So, I dug out the old idea I used for my National Novel Writing Month novel: inspired by Jungian psychology, every person in this world has a Shadow, an animal companion that is irrevocably tied to them. Similar to the concept in the His Dark Materials trilogy, except that the Shadows have a single shape from birth, and they don't speak a language their partners (called Sources) understand. Hopefully, I've made it different enough from Pullman, while still sticking to the Jungian concept of the shadow and the anima/animus.

Anyway, this story has no overarching plot yet, but here's a taste of the beginning:

A howl cut through the night like butter. Ketina’s round, furry ears perked as she raised her head and turned it in the direction of the sound. She sniffed at the cold night air, searching for anything at all to tell her how far away the pack was. She had known the moment they entered this wood that there was a wild pack here, but her Source just wouldn’t listen to her protests. After a moment, she lowered her head again  and nudged at the sleeping man beside her with her soft, gray muzzle. 

Emris swatted at her and rolled over. “Not morning yet. Go back to sleep.” 

She growled softly, deep in her throat, and nipped at the back of his neck. Another howl pierced the night and Ketina felt her thick fur bristle. If her Source wouldn’t wake on his own, she would drag him like a pup, if she had to. Her survival depended on his. And, even if she was a Shadow, she was a wolf, through and through. And she was rather fond of living. 

“Sleep,” Emris grumbled, jabbing his elbow into the wolf’s side. “Remember sleep?”

Ketina growled again and locked her jaws around the young man’s neck, refusing to let him fall back into slumber. She shook him gently, not afraid to let him feel the point on her teeth, even though the sensation of her own canines in the scruff of her neck was a little unnerving. She brushed it off as best she could, knowing it was a side effect of the bond between Shadow and Source. All that mattered now was getting out of this forest before the pack of wild wolves found them. If she was any other creature, there would not be such haste. But a single she-wolf encroaching on the territory of a pack could spell disaster.