Sometimes the World Is Already Built

I write two different series - a loosely connected set of science fiction romance and adventure  novels set in the far future of a galactic civilization I call the Sectors and another loosely connected set of paranormal romances set in Ancient Egypt. 1550 BCE  Egypt to be pretty exact.

Talk about a rich background in which to to set stories! By then the Egyptians had about 1600 years of history already behind them, the pyramids were built long ago, there were myths and gods, heroes and legends, male and female pharaohs, and a well organized civilization with all of its own rules and intricacies. OK, so I did not create Ancient Egypt. But I don't write pure historicals either...I want, no I need the gods to be personally involved in the events that occur during my novels. So I do research and more research and I never know where the research will lead me, in terms of either new plot ideas or facts to weave into the stories.

It really made my day when Kirkus Reviews said I'd "clearly done my research".  Thanks, guys!

So I invented my own Pharaoh, made him a composite of several real men who sat the on the throne around that time. I gave him a Usurper Pharaoh to fight  and she's very loosely based on Hatshepsut. My ruler and the heroes and heroines of my books constantly battle the Hyksos, who were Egypt's primary enemy at that time, and their gods and demons, which I freely admit to having developed myself, based on research into a great many belief systems of ancient peoples in that part of the world (Sumer, Mesopotamia, Akkadia) and what little we know of the Hyksos.

But it's not as simple as plunking my characters down in hot, sunny ancient Egypt during the Nile inundation and "just"  writing. I want  the people in my novels to inhabit their world believably, even if black magic is going on and the goddess Isis is issuing commands... First of all, while we know a great deal about the civilization, most of the knowledge is from tomb paintings, scraps and fragments of papyrus, broken columns etc. So a lot of what we "know" is theorizing, which leaves me room to maneuver. Secondly, the Egyptian pantheon of deities had origin stories that shifted over time. Not only that, the gods themselves changed during the thousands of years the Egyptian civilization reigned. In some cases three or four previously separate gods eventually morphed into one. And many cities and towns had their own local  god or goddess, or a version of one of the more well known gods.

So like anyone who has built a world from scratch, I have to keep track of which aspects of the mythology and the history I've chosen and be consistent. I have to try to weave daily details into my novels that place my characters in ancient Egypt for you, without either going overboard on how much research I've got at my fingertips or having the dancers, priestesses, warriors and others take too much notice of things that would be routine to them.

I enjoy the challenge. I love the time period, which is part of why I write novels set there...I sometimes create

deliberate anachronisms to make the story flow a bit more easily...I catch myself in other anachronisms that need to be fixed. "The chariot jounced over iron hard ruts..." Umm, no, they didn't have iron at this stage. and saying the chariot jounced over bronze hard ruts is just going to take my Readers out of the story most likely so...time to rewrite that sentence!

So yes, I "moved into" a world that I didn't have to create from thin air, but once I was there, I definitely did some rearranging and expansion to make the background into the place where the stories I want to tell can take place.

Maybe another week I'll tell you about my science fiction world building. Anything can happen at Word Whores!

Is This the Bus to Cartagena? Worst Places To Write...

I LOVE the movie "Romancing the Stone" on so many levels, for so many reasons...well, we could start with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and move on from there to the wonderful scene where Ms. Turner as the author Joan Wilder finishes her latest improbable romance about Angelina and Her Soul Mate Jesse. The music soars, the author weeps and the cat is unimpressed but knows there's tuna in the deal somewhere if he plays his cards right. Somehow there isn't that much drama around my house when I finish a book (and I've only once in my life typed the words "The End"). I don't get to bundle up the bulky manuscript and appear in the no-doubt stylish offices of Carina Press in person and wait while my editor weeps over the sheer goodness of my latest novel...before we sweep off to lunch or cocktails, as Joan and her glamorous publisher do in the movie.

(Although Carina is publishing my latest paranormal novel about Ancient Egypt on Monday...there might have been weeping and probably some gnashing of teeth during the editing process by someone over my interesting use of grammar and italics....but I digress....see subtly inserted cover of new book to the left...)

Yeah, well, an author can dream, right?Or pull out the dvd and watch the movie again! BUT the point of this week's Word Whores post is actually supposed to be about the worst place we've ever had to write and since for me that was a bus in the middle of mountains (in Mexico not Colombia), I immediately flashed to the scenes in the movie where Joan has boarded the wrong bus, which I would totally do. She's not actually trying to write anything during that part of the movie, although I'm sure as a veteran romance author, she was subconsciously soaking up atmosphere and colorful bits that would appear in her next novel.

OK, so more years ago than I choose to discuss here, my Alabama high school Spanish class took a field trip to Mexico. On this side of the border we traveled in fairly modern, comfortable Greyhound buses but in Mexico we had an ever changing assortment of local autobuses and for our day trip to Taxco, we must have had a moonlighting Formula One race car driver at the wheel. WOW, he drove at high speed around some of the most hairpin curves I've ever seen (pass on the wrong side on a curve with a sheer drop on the side - no problem!)....and yes, I was trying to write at the time. Probably to distract myself from the knowledge of  impending certain death from falling down a mountainside after a head-on collision. Which didn't happen because here I am, writing about it!

Many things resulted from that youthful trip to Mexico, including my extremely original and no-doubt-deathless short story about the beautiful blond daughter (niece?) of the American Ambassador to Mexico sweeping the tall, dark and handsome matador whose name now escapes me, right off his feet and into romance. No, you'll never be able to read this epic because unaccountably the editors of Teen magazine declined to publish it, thereby blighting my writing career for decades to come. (Hold a grudge? Who me?)

So there's my story...I actually prefer to write in the peace and quiet of my room, with no other people present. I can't write in a public place like so many authors do. My Muse gets very tense - maybe she was traumatized by that bus trip to Taxco too!

Your assignment, Dear Reader, is to throw some random words at me in the comments, so we Word Whores can pick a few and generate flash fiction next week!  Pretty please? I have to gather up my quota of words or the other Whores will glare at me (just kidding, guys!)....you know, maybe some stream of consciousness words like, oh, pyramid, Nile, pharaoh...just anything will do LOL!

And here's the original trailer for "Romancing the Stone":

Did Someone Say Inner Voices?

My heroes and heroines tend to be people of action, pretty much always in motion. They have thoughts, they do grow and change over the course of the novels, but there isn't much inner dialogue. Or at least not too much that gets shared with the audience or even with me, the Author LOL!

The Egyptian god Sobek in PRIESTESS OF THE NILE, for example, is grappling with the idea of being in love with a human woman and by extension having to care about the things that concern her, like Merys's younger sister. Sobek is a force of nature, keeping the Nile flowing smoothly, so it was fun to write about him trying to understand the emotions of another person. He was especially challenged to bring his attention down to the mundane daily issues of human life but because he loves Merys so much, he makes the effort. At one point he even takes on human guise to walk through her village and see the people and the place from her viewpoint. So there were bits and pieces of his thoughts in the book, but no long, extended self debate. In fact, he's trying to hide his thoughts from the goddess Isis.

In WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, my main character Nick is supposed to be using the time he's on board the luxury space liner to think about the military tribunal he's going to be facing, and to figure out what he's going to do next. I'm afraid he does a lot of drinking before the disaster happens, some gambling occurs, a tour of the ship...he's really reluctant to sit for too long, revisiting the nightmares of his last mission. He consciously avoids that pain. Once the ship comes to grief, Nick is thrown into survival mode, and trying to save other people so his thoughts tend to be along the lines of How many people can I put on this lifeboat and Is that bulkhead going to give way before I get these two trapped children to safety? There are a few moments where he's wistfully contemplating what might have been if he and the heroine had met in a better place and time but....then another crisis hits. I guess that's just how I roll as an author.

Now Khenet, WARRIOR OF THE NILE (out in September), has a recurring dream in the novel. I always feel that my dreams are my own subconscious trying to tell me something important, especially when the dream is long and detailed, or especially vivid. All of which are aspects of Khenet's dream.  Here's the way it usually begins for him:

He was walking up a small ridge, taking deep breaths of the fresh mountain air, inhaling the perfume of delicate white flowers that grew nowhere else but here. Soon he would be at the top of the rise and the village would be visible, safe in its snug valley. Only it had not been safe, had offered no shield for his people from the violent, bone breaking sickness brought one spring by a flock of migrating birds that had fallen from the sky, ill, dying. No matter how many times he had this damn dream, no matter how hard he tried, he could never control the sequence of events as they unfolded, the direst of nightmares, based on the most painful memories in his soul.

 All he could do was walk through it until the last, bitter moment when he could force himself awake. Again.

Tugged along by the dream, he walked into the village, heading down the dusty central street. The road was empty, no merchants calling out their wares, no women gossiping, no children playing…only the buildings watched him, the windows like blank eyes, doors hanging open like silent screaming mouths. Even the pets and livestock had vanished in his dream. He knew the dead lay fallen behind the walls of their dwellings.

            As he walked, unable to help himself, Khenet stared around longingly. The village itself was always unchanged, just as it had looked the day he’d hiked out, untouched by the disease, sent by his father, the village headman, on a useless journey to the provincial capital to plead for help.  Oh, Nat-re-Akhte’s grandfather the nomarch had sent help – he was a good provincial ruler – but the assistance had arrived much too late to do anything but bury the dead.

His family’s modest house stood at this end of the road.

The only good part about this dream was that he never got that far, never had to open the door and see what had happened to his parents, his brothers and sisters.

Because now the worst portion of the dream was going to begin, as it always did....

So that's about as inner monologue-y as I ever get...

(You can find out more about WARRIOR on my web page and it is up for pre-order...but I'm afraid you won't be able to see how the dream turns out until September 16th!)

(Photo at the top of the blog post from SXC by ba1969, photo directly above is from the Author)