• About Me

Susan A. Royal

~ If you could read my mind

Susan A. Royal

Monthly Archives: April 2017

Why your writing is important 

16 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by Susan A. Royal in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Wordland

People often say that words aren’t dangerous. But writers know better than that. We understand the power that words have. When we wield them we are all aware how we’re casting lightening stolen from the Gods.

Events in the world prove just how fickle words are. Assaulted by ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’ a fiction writer gets concerned. People are using the words we love to spread fear not knowledge. Moreover, the seriousness of reality can make our whimsical tales feel unworthy of attention.

But fear not. Ursula Le Guin in her usual brilliant fashion, explained the difference between these ‘lies dressed as truth’ and actual fiction. You aren’t part of the distraction, you’re part of the fight against it.

Those words that you pull from your mind are not a distraction from current events. They are a mirror to it, deliberately or not. You have something to say…

View original post 144 more words

3 Tips To Be An Awesome Critique Partner

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Susan A. Royal in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Dan Alatorre

Your humble host. your humble host

My job as your mentor and/or guide…

…and/or critique partner and/or editor and/or sounding board…

is to figure out the things you’ve done that make your story less perfect, point them out, and try to help you figure out ways to correct them.

It’s also my job when I review my own writing.

I consider it my duty, what I would do for you and what I need you to do for me. Really giving it to each other straight so we can make our stories the best they can be.

It is a tall order.

CRITICISM and INPUT

It requires guts to tell somebody what’s wrong – with patience and kindness to do it in an encouraging and non-destructive way – and it requires time and energy to help them come up with a solution.

It requires fortitude to hear what’s wrong, even when delivered kindly…

View original post 1,098 more words

FEAR

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by Susan A. Royal in article

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Being a writer, Conquering Our Fears, Facing Our Fears, learning about my characters

IMG_0985eIf I want to be successful as a writer, I must understand what makes my characters tick. Strengths, weaknesses. Things that make them happy or sad. Whatever motivates them. Including their fears.

I had an interesting conversation the other day with members of my critique group. I just considered it part of the meeting where we all visit and catch up before we get down to business. Until I got to thinking about it.

We were discussing our personal fears. Something we all have whether we want to admit it or not. While one of my friends had no problem admitting hers, she didn’t feel compelled to face them. Another friend said it was her faith that had helped her face hers.

Later that evening, it hit me. There’s a fine line between facing our fears and conquering them. And I’m not so sure that facing them isn’t the most difficult. Who wants to admit the fear of something others might consider irrational? And once we do, it means we have to deal with them. Which isn’t easy.

I have to admire anyone who has conquered their fears, but I must also admire those who keep trying.

One Man’s Journey (Part 4)

04 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by Susan A. Royal in article

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

MuseItUp Publishing, photography, Stan Hampton author, travel

After Lunch, Les Voutes, Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France

Here’s the 4th and final excerpt from Stan Hampton’s Journey Of The Spirit. I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed making this trip with him via his wonderful photographs. At the end of this post I’ll share  an excerpt from The Ledger, available in Stan’s Intimate Journeys Anthology. Thanks again to Stan for sharing. You’re welcome back any time.

 

Charmaine Pauls, Montpellier, France

Did I mention I am a published writer? Not self-publishing, though. Several years ago on an author loop run by Melange Books LLC, I met the very talented Charmaine Pauls. We have become very good friends, and she is one of two authors that I regularly pepper with questions, particularly regarding female dress and perspective. (Ahem, she is the friend who came to my rescue by calling from Montpellier for a taxi in Vers-Pont-du-Gard—and, don’t ask why I don’t know enough French to call my own taxi.) After my arrival she took me on a quick walking tour of Montpellier, and we stopped for lunch.

700-year old church, Montpellier, France

One of the sites she showed me was a 700-year old church. Beautiful and incredible—I’ve used those words so many times since arrival in France, and especially during Winter Break, that I must find other words to use. But words really do not do justice to what I have seen and experienced.

Old bookstore, Montpellier, France

Charmaine showed me the bookstore Le Bookshop in the old town where she once held a book signing. This is the cellar—the ground floor is just as fantastic. And no, the stones are not mere decoration. Imagine, a bookstore in the cellar of a building several hundred, if not a thousand, years old!

After resting and visiting with Charmaine and her wonderful family in Montpellier, I returned to Pau on Sunday night, 5 March.

This has been incredible. I have gazed upon what I had only read about and finally I have walked where Romans, Gauls, and Medieval men and women once walked. My journey of the spirit has come to a close for now. But there are more journeys in the next two months.

And after that? I want to return to France to live for a year or two, to write and especially to photograph. And you know what? Such a happening is a very real possibility—I can do this rather than simply dream and wish as I once did. I can do this.

IntimateJourneys

Intimate Journeys Anthology, Melange Books, February 2012.

ISBN: 978-1-61235-332-6

BLURB: Every journey through life is an intimate journey simply because it is someone’s personal journey. Sometimes the journey is like being alone in a small boat at the mercy of wild ocean currents, and sometimes the journey is like being part of a crew in a strong ship with billowing, wind-filled sails…

EXCERPT: The wintry night of New Year’s Eve 1899 was filled with excitement, hope, and wonder. The world was leaving the 19th century behind and entering the 20th century and no one could guess what wonders the new century offered.

Except Caleb Winston could care less. He was a heavyset man with a thick gray beard and mustache, and long gray hair slicked back over his head. As he sat in his favorite office chair brought from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the newly built home in New York, he let out a sorrowful sigh.

“It’s time to retire,” Abigail, his wife of thirty-six years, and his grown children had reminded him for several years until he gave in.

It was with a heavy and sometimes resentful heart that he turned over the operation of his sutler stores, convenience stores that served the soldiers in their far-flung forts, the local civilian population, and sometimes the Indians, to a long-time and trusted employee. He had two stores each in Montana, Wyoming and Arizona, and a pair of Indian trading posts in Wyoming and Arizona. Before he retired, management was usually conducted by mail and telegraph, though he sometimes visited his distant stores and posts. Though he was no longer a young man he enjoyed the travel.

At last, he and Abigail packed up their home and moved east that last spring of the 19th century; Abigail was ecstatic as their three children and their families lived within walking distance of their new home.

Yet, settling into a comfortable retirement was difficult. Caleb missed the vast wildness of the west with its beautiful snowy, forested mountains, isolated mountain valleys, full rushing rivers, and grassy prairies that extended to the edge of the world. During his travels he sometimes felt that he was watching a hard, yet pristine world, vanishing before the onslaught of endless settlers and a growing, yet mystifying technology. Future generations would never know the West as he had known it.

His resentment and unhappiness wasn’t only due to leaving a beloved life and world behind, but a realization that he was old. His health wasn’t the best and he sometimes felt his path in life was becoming narrower and darker, as if he was entering a deep sunless gorge that he would never leave…

The Ledger

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/sshampton/intimatejourneys.html

Recent Posts

  • Seriously flawed standards
  • 6 Ways to Show Emotions for Non-POV Characters – by Becca Puglisi…
  • Author Spotlight – Susan A. Royal
  • Medieval Monday Index
  • Fantasy Sub-Genres

Categories

  • announcement
  • article
  • Book Review
  • Interview
  • movie review
  • Scenes from My Life
  • Thought For the Day
  • Uncategorized
  • WIP
April 2017
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
« Mar   May »

Blog Stats

  • 5,675 hits

It’s About Time Series

Time Travel Adventure Romance

It’s About Time Series

Time Travel Adventure Romance

In My Own Shadow

Fantasy Adventure with Romance

Xander’s Tangled Web

Xander's Tangled Web

YA fantasy

Archives

  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog Stats

  • 5,675 hits

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Susan A. Royal
    • Join 456 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Susan A. Royal
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...