Category Archives: Alethea Kontis

Learning the Hard Way

Nov 14 RWRI received my issue of the latest Romance Writers Report yesterday (the November issue), and was thrilled to find inside its hallowed covers not only an article featuring our very own Kerri Carpenter, but a mention of the Waterworld Mermaids blog as well…WOOHOO!

The article, by Laura Kaye, is called “Getting the Call, Despite Ourselves.” Kerri, along with other seasoned romance authors such as Mindy Klasky and Jill Shalvis, volunteer some of the mistakes they made on their road to publication.

It is never easy, this thing that we do…even when it seems like we’re getting cake, we know that we’ll be running marathons to work those calories off somewhere down the line. Some of us get lucky on that first break, but even those of us who did still pay our dues at some point.

Kerri explains in the article that her path to publication took seven manuscripts and thirteen years…and that she wished she had known more about the writing community and what it could offer her before she tried doing it all on her own.

But that’s not every writer’s tale. Your mileage WILL vary.

My first publication was a Cinderella story–the manuscript that someone else submitted for me on my behalf, without me really knowing, the call I almost didn’t get because I had included zero contact information on the document. Thanks to years of being Teacher’s Pet in school I had at least been intelligent enough to put my name in a byline.

But it’s been an uphill battle ever since, one that includes economic collapse, government shutdowns, lost orders, unrenewed contracts, publisher bankruptcy, and Maurice Sendak dying on the day my first novel was released.

Oh, yeah…and then there was that time I accidentally responded to a forwarded email instead of the person who *sent* the email, and I accidentally told an editor exactly what I thought of her editing style. (It was not kind. It was, thankfully, brief, and fences were carefully mended after an overseas delivery of very expensive chocolates.)

<sigh>

Writers, if you haven’t screwed up yet in publishing…don’t worry. You will. One of the most poignant–and to me, the most meaningful–quotes I took away from the RWA conference this year in San Antonio was Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ comment: “You WILL embarrass yourself at least once, at every conference.”

And WOW is that so true. I’m here to tell you that right now. Nobody is perfect. It’s what you do after the gaffe that defines who you are.

Like all the other mistakes, you just have to own it, embrace it, forgive the person you may have injured in the process…and above all, forgive yourself. Then move on, because if we don’t keep moving, we die. Like sharks. It’s just the Way of the Lagoon.

So, I’d love to hear if you’d like to share…what are some of the publishing mistakes YOU’VE made?

Kerri Carpenter, RWR Nov. 2014

Congrats, Kerri!

 

Bon Voyage: Locations in Writing

Notre Dame MontrealBonjour la lagune!

This past Sunday–my last official day in Vermont–my sister and her husband took me on a drive up to Montreal for the day. Despite life’s craziness, I’d thankfully had the presence of mind to grab my passport in anticipation of such an adventure.

Vermonters drive up to Montreal regularly: for an event, for the day, or for a weekend getaway. My brother-in-law used to deliver lost bags from the Burlington airport, which took him into Montreal so often that he makes both a fantastic driver and tour guide. We ate sushi and Greek food, visited the Notre Dame Montreal to light a candle for my nephew, and even stopped at a Chapters and Indigo so that I could sign some books (hooray, Canada for stocking all my YA novels!).

Mom and Dad and Soteria and I moved away from Vermont when I was six, so I hadn’t been to Montreal in my adult life. I found it lovely and fascinating…like being in France, only everyone speaks English. All the street signs and flyers are in French, and when you’re walking down the street past the outdoor cafes, all you hear is French. But when you ask a salesperson for help, they speak perfect, unaccented English.

I told someone once that my family was “French Canadian” in front of my Memere. She corrected me by firmly stating, “We are FRENCH.” I totally get that now.

I am a firm believer in travel–wherever you can, whenever you are able.
ESPECIALLY WHEN WRITING.

Most of Hero is spent with a witch and a dragon in caves in the White Mountains. While I did not have access to a witch or a dragon, I was only a few hours away from Luray Caverns, so I took a day trip there. I filled an entire notebook with phrases and words and feelings and impressions….the experience was invaluable to the writing of that novel.

But we’re not always that lucky.

When I was putting together Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, the publisher asked me to include a full section on New Orleans, since that is where most of the books take place. This presented a problem: not only had I never been to New Orleans, but I also did not have the funds to travel there to do my research. I was forced to use what I had: the Internet, books from the library, and a friend who was traveling there. I read all I could, visited ghost tour and carriage ride websites, and pored over every pamphlet and picture Eddie brought home for me. And I guess the publisher liked it, because there were virtually no editorial comments made on that entire section.

The year after writing that–right before it was published–I was finally able to go to New Orleans with Sherrilyn Kenyon. There I was, visiting a place I’d never been, but I could have given my own tour. Everything was strange and familiar, all at once.

It was the second-most surreal location experience I’d ever had.

The MOST surreal was the time I got to visit the town I made up in my own head.

The first book I wrote as an adult (most importantly, the first novel I ever finished) was called HAVEN. (This was back in 2004, before *everything* was called HAVEN.) It was based on a town I’d made up in which to set my Possessed Scarecrow YA Horror Novel. I wanted somewhere in the midwest…like Kansas. But what should I name the town? Let’s see…if I was a Homesteader way back when, traveling across the US with no idea how long–or if–I’d ever reach another shore, and I decided to just STOP, what would I call that place? Well, for me, the tired Homesteader, it would be a haven…so that’s what I named it. Haven, Kansas.

Months later, long after the first draft, it occurred to me to type “Haven” into the Weather Channel website, to see if there was a town called Haven anywhere in the US. There was only one. Yup, you guessed it…

Haven, Kansas.

Fast forward a year or so, to a visit with my friends Tammy and Mark in Wichita. Over dinner one night, I mentioned my John Carpenteresque Kansas writing story. Mark–who grew up in Kansas–proceeded to tell me that Haven was only about two hours from where we were.

Obviously, we had to go visit.

Visiting the town was indeed surreal, but in a way that informed my writing. I took tons of pictures and made notes on things that would have been relevant to my novel. The most fascinating bit, however, was Mark…who spent the entire two-hour drive up there telling me what it was like to be a kid growing up in Kansas. I filled page after page in my notebook, and when I got home, I did my first full-out revision of that first finished novel.

[Edited to add: At the request of my agent, I am currently revising that manuscript again, so that we can get it out to some editors…she *loves* the story. So stay tuned!]

 

All of which is to  say: Never underestimate the power of travel. Write about a place you’ve never been, and then go there, or vice versa. Both experiences will change the way you do research for a story or novel when you can’t actually visit the location you’re writing about.

And then one day, when we’re rich and famous, we can travel to all of these places.

So…is your passport up to date?
Where in the world would you like to go?

No Such Thing

Vermont in the FallI do not believe in Writers Block.
I do not believe in The Muse.

Writers who reference these things frustrate me.

I believe in the power of sitting my lazy butt in the chair in front of my computer and forcing myself to work, however much I don’t feel like it. I believe in Momentum.

Princess Alethea’s First Law of Writing Momentum: A writer at rest stays at rest. A writer in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

And boy, can the Universe dole out some forces.

In the last nine months, I have dealt with a lion’s share of this crap–literally nine months from the posting of this blog–it started with driving my sister to Baltimore on Christmas Day so that she could have emergency spinal surgery at Johns Hopkins. Since then I have dealt with the illness and recovery of both my parents, and the death of my significant other’s grandmother. I then broke up with that significant other (when you are told enough times that you are a selfish freeloader and that you should get out, eventually you do) and moved from DC to Florida…but not before having my fairly successful YA series dumped by my publisher. Not long after that came the death of my dear friend and inspiration Jay Lake…and just when I finally felt like I was getting my life back in order, my nephew Josh died. He was 25. We still have no idea what happened. We may never learn all that we wish to know.

I explain this not to garner sorrys or sympathy–I don’t want them. I am beyond tired of all that. I would like my life to go on, please. I’m still in Vermont; I accompanied my big sister (Josh’s mom) to her workplace today and sat down at my computer. We thought that by working together we might encourage each other to accomplish more. Cherie is catching up on paperwork. I’m revising a novel my agent is very excited about.

I’m on Chapter One.

I’ve been on Chapter One for a week.

But I still open my computer screen and stare at the words, willing myself to work on just one more sentence. Just one more sentence.

Ten minutes ago, we got a call that my nephew Caleb was in lockdown at his school most of the day. Some lunatic walked into the gas station in the middle of Morrisville, shot the clerk four times, and is now loose in town. With a gun. Caleb is safely at home. We will not be opening the Bijou Cineplex tonight. Cherie and I are still in Burlington, with a lot of work to do.

Like Chapter One. And this blog.

The Chaos of the Universe has followed me around for a large chunk of my life, and I’ve been a good sport about it so far…but you have to admit, this is a little ridiculous.

Yes, I am grief-sick. Yes, I am tired. But I got out of bed and dyed my hair this morning. I took pictures of the leaves on the trees so that my friends might witness the beauty of Vermont when she moves into Autumn with all her magnificence. Inside I quietly hope that my Universe gets less chaotic, but I’m not counting on it.

What I’m counting on is me and my butt, in this chair, reviewing one more sentence of Chapter One. And then one more sentence. And then one more. And if it’s too late to do one after that, then I will go to sleep and get up in the morning and do one more.

I am a writer. Futile or not, insane or otherwise, it is my decision to fight this good fight. And it is me fighting, not The Muse or Divine Intervention or anything else. I am the one sitting here clad in my armor of words, pen brandished mightier than any sword, prepared to write stories that move mountains. And  if they don’t move mountains, they will at least move me….one more sentence forward. One more sentence forward. All the way to the end.

And then I shall open another document and do the same thing all over again, Universe bedamned.

I do not believe in Writers Block.
I do not believe in The Muse.
I believe in me.

Using Your Power for Good

Princess Alethea MermaidA few years ago, I played a joke on the internet.

I was meeting up with my Aunt Theda in Baltimore — as many of you know, my Aunt Theda Kontis is a well-known ENT and Plastic Surgeon. She has her own practice, but she still teaches and consults every so often at Johns Hopkins. On this particular day, she let me know that it would be easiest to meet up with her by coming through the ER entrance.

So, for funsies, I took a picture of the ER sign in the Johns Hopkins parking garage and said something flippant.

Within 45 minutes, I had about 28974 Tweets and FB messages asking if I was okay. I received texts from multiple friends, including my sister, and then finally one from Aunt Theda (who had talked to my sister) that said, “You should call your mom.”

So I called Mom, who had *not* been on the internet in the last hour and knew nothing about it, so she found it a little amusing that I was calling to tell her to not be alarmed over something that hadn’t happened. When I told her not to be worried, she laughed and said something to the effect of, “I am even less worried about you after this. Now I know that if anything does ever happen to you, the whole world will jump up to save you before I even find out about it.”

I vowed from that point on to only use my powers for good.

This past weekend, my father called a friend in Belgium who was having a birthday. The conversation went fine for a little while, but then Dad started repeating himself over and over, and finally hung up the phone. He was worried that his friend had had a stroke, because he kept repeating the same thing over and over. The connection was clear the whole time and the friend never said anything about not being able to hear my father…but we were worried. This friend was alone, and we were worried.

We were also NOT in Belgium.

If you have ever attempted to contact the emergency service of a country that you are not actually in, it’s virtually impossible. Dad spent the next half hour trying to get in touch with people overseas while mom and I looked up words like “stroke” in French. Finally, when dad was so scared and frustrated he was ready to give up, I went online and put out my own call for help.

It was answered almost immediately, and the situation is now under control. (The friend seems to be fine, but we still have a note out to other friends in Belgium to keep an eye on him, and I will be updating everyone as soon as I hear something more official.) I learned a lot all those years ago from my “fire drill” with Aunt Theda, and I learned even more this time around:

1.) When you post about an emergency on social media, some people will think you’ve been hacked. It is important that you edit your status or post a follow-up tweet that this is not actually the case. You certainly don’t want some social media spam police shutting you down before you can get your situation resolved.

2.) As soon as you find a person that will help you resolve your situation, let everyone else know. Unfortunately, the FB algorithms being what they are, a lot of people won’t see this and know that the danger has passed (or is being handled).

3.) As soon as you find a person to help you resolve the situation, delete the original status/post of your cry for help. This will stop the status from being shared or retweeted. However, people who have shared the status on FB will still have THAT status out there. You need to go to your notifications, find the list of people who shared your status, and then post a comment thanking them and assuring them that all is well.

I only regret that I did not first write down the names of the people who RTd me on Twitter before I deleted the status — I would have liked to thank them personally.

4.) It is possible that clean-up will take longer than resolving the actual emergency. I urge you to be patient with people asking you three hours or three days later if you still need help. Remember that these people are your friends, they are still willing to help you, and for whatever reason the internet is just bringing them this news now. It’s not their fault.

5.) MY FRIENDS ARE AMAZING. It was late on a Sunday night, and I was introduced to a woman in Belgium who shared a mutual friend with me on FB. Her husband called my father’s friend and spoke to him, so that we could be assured everything was fine. (The friend blamed it on a bad connection, but we were still worried.) I will definitely be sending her a huge thank you package. Subsequently a few other people on Twitter who lived in Belgium contacted me, and I thanked them just as profusely for being so willing to help a complete stranger.

6.) If you are ever on the other side of this equation, only comment if you can be helpful. Before I was put in touch with someone who could actually aid me in my emergency, I got a lot of stuff like “Too bad this wasn’t a year ago, I used to live in Belgium.” While this might be a lovely data point for your profile bio, it doesn’t help…and in an emergency situation, I can assure you that the freaked-out person who sent up the Bat Signal is only interested in information helpful at that exact moment.

Have you ever had an emergency in which you needed to turn to the internet for help? I’d be very interested to hear others’ experiences.

And again, to all of you who boosted the signal for me this weekend — thank you again, a million times. You are loved and treasured more than you know.

Mermaids & Friends: Deborah Harkness

Hello, all — Alethea Mermaid again here, in the lagoon with an author celebrating the release of her new book tomorrow: Deborah Harkness!

We’re all very excited about THE BOOK OF LIFE, the highly-anticipated final installment of her bestselling All Souls Trilogy.

Deborah joins us in the lagoon today to answer some questions about writing, and her new book. Take it away, Deborah!

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In your day job, you are a professor of history and science at the University of Southern California and have focused on alchemy in your research. What aspects of this intersection between science and magic do you hope readers will pick up on while reading THE BOOK OF LIFE? There’s quite a bit more lab work in this book!

There is. Welcome back to the present! What I hope readers come to appreciate is that science—past or present—is nothing more than a method for asking and answering questions about the world and our place in it. Once, some of those questions were answered alchemically. Today, they might be answered biochemically and genetically. In the future? Who knows. But Matthew is right in suggesting that there are really remarkably few scientific questions and we have been posing them for a very long time. Two of them are: who am I? why am I here?

Much of the conflict in the book seems to mirror issues of race and sexuality in our society, and there seems to be a definite moral conclusion to THE BOOK OF LIFE. Could you discuss this? Do you find that a strength of fantasy novels is their ability to not only to allow readers to escape, but to also challenge them to fact important moral issues?

Human beings like to sort and categorize. We have done this since the beginnings of recorded history, and probably well back beyond that point. One of the most common ways to do that is to group things that are “alike” and things that are “different.” Often, we fear what is not like us. Many of the world’s ills have stemmed from someone (or a group of someones) deciding what is different is also dangerous. Witches, women, people of color, people of different faiths, people of different sexual orientations—all have been targets of this process of singling others out and labeling them different and therefore undesirable. Like my interest in exploring what a family is, the issue of difference and respect for difference (rather than fear) informed every page of the All Souls Trilogy. And yes, I do think that dealing with fantastic creatures like daemons, vampires, and witches rather than confronting issues of race or sexuality directly can enable readers to think through these issues in a useful way and perhaps come to different conclusions about members of their own families and communities. As I often say when people ask me why supernatural creatures are so popular these days: witches and vampires are monsters to think with.

From the moment Matthew and a pregnant Diana arrive back at Sept-Tours and reinstate themselves back into a sprawling family of witches and vampires, it becomes clear that the meaning of family will be an important idea for THE BOOK OF LIFE. How does this unify the whole series? Did you draw on your own life?

Since time immemorial the family has been an important way for people to organize themselves in the world. In the past, the “traditional” family was a sprawling and blended unit that embraced immediate relatives, in-laws and their immediate families, servants, orphaned children, the children your partner might bring into a family from a previous relationship, and other dependents. Marriage was an equally flexible and elastic concept in many places and times. Given how old my vampires are, and the fact that witches are the keepers of tradition, I wanted to explore from the very first page of the series the truly traditional basis of family: unqualified love and mutual responsibility. That is certainly the meaning of family that my parents taught me.

While there are entire genres devoted to stories of witches, vampires, and ghosts, the idea of a weaver – a witch who weaves original spells – feels very unique to THE BOOK OF LIFE. What resources helped you gain inspiration for Diana’s uniqueness?

Believe it or not, my inspiration for weaving came from a branch of mathematics called topology. I became intrigued by mathematical theories of mutability to go along with my alchemical theories of mutability and change. Topology is a mathematical study of shapes and spaces that theorizes how far something can be stretched or twisted without breaking. You could say it’s a mathematical theory of connectivity and continuity (two familiar themes to any reader of the All Souls Trilogy). I wondered if I could come up with a theory of magic that could be comfortably contained within mathematics, one in which magic could be seen to shape and twist reality without breaking it. I used fabric as a metaphor for this worldview with threads and colors shaping human perceptions. Weavers became the witches who were talented at seeing and manipulating the underlying fabric. In topology, mathematicians study knots—unbreakable knots with their ends fused together that can be twisted and shaped. Soon the mathematics and mechanics of Diana’s magic came into focus.

A Discovery of Witches debuted at # 2 on the New York Times bestseller list and Shadow of Night debuted at #1. What has been your reaction to the outpouring of love for the All Souls Trilogy? Was it surprising how taken fans were with Diana and Matthew’s story?

It has been amazing—and a bit overwhelming. I was surprised by how quickly readers embraced two central characters who have a considerable number of quirks and challenge our typical notion of what a heroine or hero should be. And I continue to be amazed whenever a new reader pops up, whether one in the US or somewhere like Finland or Japan—to tell me how much they enjoyed being caught up in the world of the Bishops and de Clemonts. Sometimes when I meet readers they ask me how their friends are doing—meaning Diana, or Matthew, or Miriam. That’s an extraordinary experience for a writer.

Diana and Matthew, once again, move around to quite a number of locations in THE BOOK OF LIFE, including New Haven, New Orleans, and a few of our favorite old haunts like Oxford, Madison, and Sept-Tours. What inspired you to place your characters in these locations? Have you visited them yourself?

As a writer, I really need to experience the places I write about in my books. I want to know what it smells like, how the air feels when it changes direction, the way the sunlight strikes the windowsill in the morning, the sound of birds and insects. Not every writer may require this, but I do. So I spent time not only in New Haven but undertaking research at the Beinecke Library so that I could understand the rhythms of Diana’s day there. I visited New Orleans several times to imagine my vampires into them. All of the locations I pick are steeped in history and stories about past inhabitants—perfect fuel for any writer’s creative fire.

Did you know back when you wrote A Discovery of Witches how the story would conclude in THE BOOK OF LIFE? Did the direction change once you began the writing process?

I knew how the trilogy would end, but I didn’t know exactly how we would get there. The story was well thought out through the beginning of what became The Book of Life, but the chunk between that beginning and the ending (which is as I envisioned it) did change. In part that was because what I had sketched out was too ambitious and complicated—the perils of being not only a first-time trilogy writer but also a first time author. It was very important to me that I resolve and tie up all the threads already in the story so readers had a satisfying conclusion. Early in the writing of The Book of Life it became clear that this wasn’t going to give me much time to introduce new characters or plot twists. I now understand why so many trilogies have four, five, six—or more—books in them. Finishing the trilogy as a trilogy required a lot of determination and a very thick pair of blinders as I left behind characters and story lines that would take me too far from the central story of Diana, Matthew, and the Book of Life.

A Discovery of Witches begins with Diana Bishop stumbling across a lost, enchanted manuscript called Ashmole 782 in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, and the secrets contained in the manuscript are at long last revealed in THE BOOK OF LIFE. You had a similar experience while you were completing your dissertation. What was the story behind your discovery? And how did it inspire the creation of these novels?

I did discover a manuscript—not an enchanted one, alas—in the Bodleian Library. It was a manuscript owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, the mathematician and alchemist John Dee. In the 1570s and 1580s he became interested in using a crystal ball to talk to angels. The angels gave him all kinds of instructions on how to manage his life at home, his work—they even told him to pack up his family and belongings and go to far-away Poland and Prague. In the conversations, Dee asked the angels about a mysterious book in his library called “the Book of Soyga” or “Aldaraia.” No one had ever been able to find it, even though many of Dee’s other books survive in libraries throughout the world. In the summer of 1994 I was spending time in Oxford between finishing my doctorate and starting my first job. It was a wonderfully creative time, since I had no deadlines to worry about and my dissertation on Dee’s angel conversations was complete. As with most discoveries, this discovery of a “lost” manuscript was entirely accidental. I was looking for something else in the Bodleian’s catalogue and in the upper corner of the page was a reference to a book called “Aldaraia.” I knew it couldn’t be Dee’s book, but I called it up anyway. And it turned out it WAS the book (or at least a copy of it). With the help of the Bodleian’s Keeper of Rare Books, I located another copy in the British Library.

Are there other lost books like this in the world?

Absolutely! Entire books have been written about famous lost volumes—including works by Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare to name just a few. Libraries are full of such treasures, some of them unrecognized and others simply misfiled or mislabeled. And we find lost books outside of libraries, too. In January 2006, a completely unknown manuscript belonging to one of the 17th century’s most prominent scientists, Robert Hooke, was discovered when someone was having the contents of their house valued for auction. The manuscript included minutes of early Royal Society meetings that we presumed were lost forever.

Shadow of Night and A Discovery of Witches have often been compared to young adult fantasy like Twilight, with the caveat that this series is for adults interested in history, science, and academics. Unlike Bella and Edward, Matthew and Diana are card-carrying members of academia who meet in the library of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Are these characters based on something you found missing in the fantasy genre?

There are a lot of adults reading young adult books, and for good reason. Authors who specialize in the young adult market are writing original, compelling stories that can make even the most cynical grownups believe in magic. In writing A Discovery of Witches, I wanted to give adult readers a world no less magical, no less surprising and delightful, but one that included grown-up concerns and activities. These are not your children’s vampires and witches.

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Deborah Harkness is the number one New York Times bestselling author of A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. A history professor at the University of Southern California, Harkness has received Fulbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center fellowships. Her publications include works on the history of science, magic, and alchemy.  Her most recent scholarly book is The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution.  She lives in Los Angeles.

Mermaids & Friends: Corinna Smith

Corinna Smith & Adam Ezra

Corinna Smith & Adam Ezra

I have a huge girl crush on Corinna Smith. She’s incredibly talented, kind, a great teacher, and loves kids…and she’s gorgeous to boot! I admire this woman down to my toes–er–fins. Really…she’s just magic. (She’s even a mermaid. I swear!) And her birthday was July 5th — happy belated birthday, Corinna!

Corinna had her violin stolen shortly after she joined up with the Adam Ezra group, who launched a successful Indiegogo campaign to raise the funds to buy her another one. She plays like a dream and is a phenomenon on stage…you just have to see her to believe it.

So hie thee to an Adam Ezra Group concert if they happen to be playing in our area. In the meantime, feel free to friend Corinna on Facebook…and check out her awesome interview, right here, right now!

[Edited to say: I think I always knew making music was like writing…but I wasn’t quite sure JUST how much until I read Corinna’s answers here. See? Magic.–AK]

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Little Corinna...

Little Corinna…

When did music first inspire you?
Music was always part of my life- my mom used to sing me lullabies, and I grew up listening to my dad play his guitar every evening as a way to relax. I got a toy piano for my 3rd birthday and used to “compose” songs for my stuffed animals, and began real piano lessons a few years later. But the first time I remember realizing I HAVE to play music was at an Alison Krauss and Union Station concert when I was 13. Her voice and her fiddle playing were so sweet but so powerful, and I wanted to be just like her.

How many instruments do you play?
That’s a tricky question- I studied music education in college, which means that technically I can play any instrument that’s found in schools… but I’m pretty sure nobody would be happy to hear me squawk away on the bassoon or pass out trying to play a note on the tuba!
Instruments I can actually play some songs on would be violin, viola, piano, guitar, mandolin, and banjo… and I sing a little, too.

What’s the most frustrating thing (for you) about your job being something you love?
I feel pretty lucky that I get to do the thing I love most in the world every single day, but because I am so passionate about it, I can also be very self-critical. Some days we’ll play a set where the humidity makes my violin lose tuning, or there are issues with our sound and I can’t hear my voice while singing, or I just space out for a second and make a really obvious mistake… there’s a little voice in my head that will say “see? you’re not good enough! you can’t do this!!” in those moments and I have to be careful not to let it take over my thoughts.

Conversely, what’s the most rewarding thing about your music?
There’s a moment in every live performance where I can feel everyone in the room connecting to the same energy. It’s my favorite thing about playing music for people, and the only way I can describe it is to say it’s magic. This can happen no matter where we are, how many people we’re playing for, how tired/hungry/cranky I might have been before the moment… It’s as if the entire outside world melts away and it’s just us being bathed in music. It’s such a crazy honor to get to help create that experience, and it still mystifies me every time it happens.

Tell us a little bit about writing your own music. Like…what comes first, the music or the lyrics?
For a long time, I wanted to write songs but was so paralyzed by that little “you’re not good enough” voice that I didn’t write at all. In the last few years, I’ve decided that for me, songwriting is not about writing something good or creating songs with any intention of sharing them… it’s just a personal form of expression, like keeping a journal. Once I made that distinction, I was able to let go and write, but I don’t really have a process… Sometimes it’s a phrase that sticks in my head, sometimes it’s a little fragment of melody, and sometimes it’s a chord progression I’ve heard elsewhere that I decide to steal for myself! The most important thing for me has been to withhold all judgment, be ok with writing “bad” songs, and use the whole process as a cathartic way to release whatever I’m feeling at the time.

You play primarily with the Adam Ezra Group — how do you collaborate with Adam and the rest of the group?
I’ve been with the Adam Ezra Group for about a year and a half, and although the songs start in Adam’s head, he is a really generous and collaborative artist, so everyone in the band has lots of room to contribute ideas when we’re working out a song. When Adam brings a new song to the band, we usually spend some time talking about it, listening to demo recordings he’ll make, and then devote a few rehearsals to experiment with it together. Sometimes we’ll do this with older songs of his too, which can give them a new life. My role as a fiddler/violinist is primarily to provide texture, and I’m often one of the last to create my parts because it allows me to find spaces within all the other layers of the song.

Corinna and Brandon

Corinna and her brother Brandon

How much are you on the road? What do you miss the most when you’re away from home?
We’re constantly on tour these days–over 200 shows a year, plus travel days to get to those shows–so our big messy van has kind of become my home at this point! I don’t really miss a particular place, but I do miss people. Most of my family is in Michigan and I don’t get to see them often… and my brother has an awesome band of his own called the Appleseed Collective… they tour all the time too, and it’s particularly hard to be away from him – he and I have been best friends our whole lives. We send handwritten letters to each other from the road, and we’re constantly scheming ways to get our two bands together (hint: it’s about to happen later this summer!!)

When you are on stage, you seem so lost in the music…and yet you still manage to engage not only the audience, but also each member of the band on stage (your enthusiasm is so contagious!). What I want to know is: What goes through your mind when you’re up there? How do you keep from losing the crowd, or the flow of the song?
That’s the magic feeling I mentioned! It’s such an amazing experience for me. I’m not sure there’s anything describable actually going through my mind… what I feel at those times are love, gratitude, and incredibly intense joy.

I’ve seen photos and articles about some of the teaching that you’ve done — can you tell us a little bit about that and why you do it?
Teaching is my other great love besides playing. I was so lucky growing up to have amazing teachers myself- my piano teacher, Carol Franklin, and my orchestra director, Bob Phillips, were two of the most influential people in my life. From the very first day, they each supported not only my budding musical skills, but encouraged me and made me believe that I had valid and important creative ideas–even as a beginning music student who could barely play her instruments. I think it’s vital that adults take children’s creative work seriously and see it as an expression that is just as honest and meaningful as a professional artist’s expression, even if the execution isn’t skilled yet. I’ve taught all ages from 2 1/2 years old to retired adults, spent some time teaching music in Singapore as well as lots of places in the U.S., worked with classes as big as 200, first-day beginning students, and even spent a few hours consulting with one of my classical music heroes who was a legendary performer but had never improvised… every single person I’ve ever taught or played music with has had beautiful, creative ideas. It fills me up and inspires me to be a part of that. Fortunately, teaching is a passion for Adam and the rest of my bandmates as well, and our nonprofit organization RallySound includes educational outreach in its mission, so I still get some opportunities to teach even while touring!!

Professor Corinna, hard at work!

Professor Corinna, hard at work!

Oh my gosh…I could ask you so many more things…but this one I ask everyone: If you could have any superpower (or be any superhero) what/who would it be and why?
I sometimes have dreams where I’m not myself (I might be a child, or an animal… once, I dreamt I was the ocean!) and those are always fascinating to me. I think if I could have a superpower I would love to be able to experience life as other living things do. How cool would it be to become an elderly woman for a day, or an octopus, or a tree? And to be serious for just a moment, if such a superpower existed, and there was a way to make people live for a day in each other’s worlds, it might prevent a lot of the senseless violence caused by humans’ inability (or unwillingness) to see other perspectives…

What projects are you working on that fans can look forward to?
Right now my main project is playing shows every day with the Adam Ezra Group and being a part of the team, which takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work but is completely worth it. An event that AEG is hosting which I’m particularly excited about is our annual Ramble, which will be August 23 on Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts. It’s a festival put on by our nonprofit RallySound to support a really important cause, all while hanging out on a gorgeous beach all day sharing great music. Last year we raised enough funds to house 15 homeless veterans in New England, and this year we’ve partnered with some amazing, independently-owned farms to provide CSA shares of fresh, healthy produce to our veteran families on a weekly basis for a year! I’m also personally excited because my brother’s band is coming out to play at the Ramble, and my whole family is road-tripping to share the weekend with us… And of course, as a mermaid, I never turn down an opportunity to spend time at the beach! 🙂

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Lazy Mermaid…Lazy Writing

Alethea MermaidSo…I have this HUGE issue with lazy writing.

It is so annoying to me when an author works to set up a convoluted setting or plot line at the beginning of his or her story, and then instead of following the thread logically through to the end, makes up something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and solves the problem with that instead.

Anton Chekhov said: “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

His comment was more about including extraneous information. From my perspective, it should also apply the other way around…if you include the gun. USE THE GUN. Don’t have the murder victim hanged in the end for no good reason.

There’s a book that’s a PERFECT example of this that I use to illustrate such lazy writing when I’m at conferences. I won’t name names here…but suffice it to say, it was a romance about a shapeshifter in love with a rich mogul. The shapshifter is invited to her new boyfriend’s private island, where his maid has picked out a swimsuit for our heroine, sight unseen. The suit is a size six and fits like a glove.

I threw the book across the room and never picked it up again. (Except to donate it to Goodwill.)

It stretches believability enough that a woman could pick out a bathing suit for another woman…I have enough trouble picking out my OWN swimsuits, thank you very much. But the author (and her editor) missed a FABULOUS opportunity: If your main character is a shapeshifter, it would be a much more fun (and sympathetic) scene if the bathing suit was horrible…and the woman shifted herself so that it fit perfectly.

If that had happened, I would have loved this author forever! Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

In my course of doing the Fairy Tale Rant series on YouTube, I’ve begin to realize that some of these “lazy storytelling” problems have been with us since the time of fairy tales.

Below is one such example of lazy writing…or at least, I think so. I have a friend who disagrees. What do you think? How would YOU have ended this one?

(PS: The reason I titled this post “lazy mermaid” is because I MEANT to do a mermaid movie review, but I didn’t write it up last night like I was supposed to. So expect that to drop in some other time this month…xox Alethea)

Life After the Six-Fingered Man

Inigo Montoya: Is very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.

Westley: Have you ever considered piracy? You’d make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.

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The goal of every aspiring writer is to be published.

Maybe that publication comes in the form of a review, an op-ed, an article, a short story, or–*gasp*–even a NOVEL. Hooray! You’ve finally published a novel!

Now what do you do with your life?

Welcome to the Inigo Montoya Dilemma. In The Princess Bride, Inigo dedicated his life to hunting down the six-fingered man who killed his father. After the six-fingered man was dead (spoilers!), Inigo found himself at a loss as to what to do next.

I think every one of us feels that moment in life–after college, after children,  after the marathon, what have you. Writers especially are keenly aware of this. They publish the novel, and then have to create a new benchmark, a new personal goal that motivates them to keep moving forward.

Otherwise, why would we keep writing?

Some of the benchmarks are obvious: Hit the USA bestseller list. Hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list. Win a [award of your choice] Award.

Some of the benchmarks are more personal: Be invited into an anthology by your favorite editor. Have a cover designed by your favorite artist. Have lunch with one of your literary heroes.

I was talking about this mental list I constantly have running in my head to one of the Mermaids and thought: Why not write that down and share it? Why not see what others would include as *their* benchmarks?

So that’s the game, today. I’ll start, and you guys include your picks in the comments. Ready?

Earn out your advance
Write a sequel
Hit the NYT bestseller list
Hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list
See your book in a bookstore
Spot a stranger reading your book in a public location
Chat–as a peer–with one of your literary heroes
Sell a book based only on a pitch
Publish a book outside your original genre
Qualify for Active membership in a national writers organization
Win a major award
Get fan mail
Have a fan bring you presents to a book signing
Have a fan cry with joy at meeting you
Get invited to be Guest of Honor at a convention/conference
Give a keynote speech
Give a TED talk

Okay…now it’s your turn! What else would you add to this list?

Mermaids & Friends: Sandra Tayler

Today, the Mermaid Lagoon is proud to host the fabulous Sandra Tayler!

I had the honor of being a backer of Sandra’s Kickstarter campaign for her second picture book, The Strength of Wild Horses. I asked Sandra if she might stop by and share a little bit about her experiences, both as a writer of books for headstrong young girls, and as the proud owner of a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign.

Take it away, Sandra!

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* What inspired you to write picture books?

My daughter was in the middle of a particularly difficult kindergarten year. It was the kind of year that has visits to the principals office and lots of conferences with teachers. Through it I watched my daughter start coming to the conclusion that she was a bad person because she was always in trouble. I knew she needed a story that let her see that ideas are separate from ourselves and that they can be steered in good ways or bad. I couldn’t find that story, so I wrote Hold on to Your Horses. My latest book The Strength of Wild Horses elaborates on the ideas and characters in the first story.

* What age group are your books for? Who is your target audience?

I think the sweet spot for enjoying these picture books is children ages 4-8 and their parents, but I’ve heard of much younger people enjoying them and much older people too. They’re for anyone who is bursting with creative ideas.

Sandra Tayler's HORSES series

* Tell us a little bit about Amy and the importance of horses!

Strength of Wild Horses begins with the line “Amy was a girl with ideas like wild horses” and I think that really summarizes her well. She is bursting with energy and creativity. Those things combine in ways that get her into a lot of trouble, but by imagining her ideas as horses, Amy learns that she can steer them. Then in Strength of Wild Horses she sees that creative ideas can rescue other people.

* Be honest, how scary was it to launch a Kickstarter?

Terrifying. I did not want to do it. Hold on to Your Horses came out before Kickstarter existed and I kind of wanted to do the same thing again, but it meant coming up with all the money for printing ourselves. I’d have done that if I had to, but there is real power in Kickstarter. I’d seen how it works and I knew that the best promotional push I could give Strength of Wild Horses was to run a Kickstarter project to fund it. I’m so glad I did. Setting it up and running it was lots of work, but I was overwhelmed by the kindness of my backers and friends. They really came out to support the book and show me I was creating something that others cared about as well as me.

* How did you feel once you hit that goal? Was the pressure better or worse?

My project was timed a little bit strangely. The last week of the funding drive began on Thanksgiving weekend, which is not an ideal time to run an internet promotion. People are off with their families or shopping. We hit the funding goal on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend with five days to go. With so few days left, I knew we weren’t likely to hit the sort of stretch goal that would fund a second book, which left me with small stretch goals that weren’t particularly compelling. It felt like the pressure was off. The world was distracted by the holidays and the Kickstarter didn’t get a huge rush at the end as many projects do. I was just really glad I’d get to do the book.

* How did you find your illustrator?

When I was seeking an artist for the first book, we put out the word to my husband’s readers. He does a daily webcomic and has pretty good internet reach. Angela’s husband saw the call and encouraged Angela to submit. I’m so happy she did. Her art is perfect for these stories and truly beautiful.

* Will The Strength of Wild Horses be made available to non-Kickstarter folks?

Yes. It’s available now through our online store
Or through Amazon.com

* What’s next for you?

I’m working on some books of essays, and a middle-grade novel. After that there are at least two more picture books pinging around in my brain. You can keep up with all my thoughts an work by following my blog One Cobble at a Time, or by signing up for my mailing list!

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Sandra Tayler began writing her first story at the age of 6. It wasn’t a good story, but she loved it. She continued to love writing stories all the way through high school despite scattered encouragements and discouragements along the way. At the age of 20 Sandra met and married Howard Tayler who at that time was a musician. Together they had 4 children, 2 houses, and one failed record production business. Somewhere along the line Howard realized that he really wanted to be a cartoonist and Sandra realized that she wanted to start writing again. Now Sandra spends her time as the distribution half of the Schlock Mercenary comic business, a mother of four kids, and in the spaces between everything else she writes. Her other work can be found at http://sandra.tayler.com.