Rachel Starr Thomson

I’m excited about books because…?

“Because learning (and as a result, books) is at the heart of human consciousness and experience. Books connect us to the world. That’s the BIG picture, but ultimately finding and reading books is fun and the internet, despite all the doom and gloom talk, has made publishing more fun, more open and expansive. The web is bringing more people into the publishing process, redefining what publishing means and giving everybody new tools to write, publish and sell them. So what’s not to like? It’s a great time to be in book publishing, despite the fact that everything is changing.”

–Calvin Reid, Senior News Editor, Publishers Weekly

If you have much of a finger on the publishing industry (and you should, if you want to write for a living), you know that the electronic age has caused all kinds of panic in the hallowed halls of trade publishing (print books are going to become obsolete! people won’t read anything longer than two paragraphs! self-published trash is taking over! the sky is falling!). There are some good reasons to worry, but overall, I’m pretty optimistic.

Digital Book World, a site/community at the forefront of modern publishing optimism, recently asked cutting-edge thinkers in the industry why they are still excited about books, and why we can (and should) be optimistic about the future. Read it!

Readers of the young adult fantasy Starlighter will recognize the opening scene of Bryan Davis’s upcoming Masters and Slayers — that feeling of “we’ve been here before” is more than just deja vu. Masters and Slayers is the first book in the “Tales of Starlight” series published by AMG/Living Ink, a fantasy series for adults that shares a world, characters, and an overarching plot with Zondervan’s YA series “Dragons of Starlight.”

This time, as the book opens in an arena where the most gifted warriors of Major 4 compete, our attention is focused not on Jason Masters — hero of Starlighter — but on Adrian, his older brother, who is about to give up the glory and title of champion for the sake of principle and principle alone: his nearest competitor is a woman, Marcelle, and Adrian does not fight women. He steps down, and in that one act of character reveals to anyone who cares to look that he really is a hero.

A hero worth his salt, Adrian has greater things than tournaments on his mind. He is preparing to follow a series of mysterious clues to a portal that will take him to another world: Starlight, the dragon planet, where kidnapped humans have been held as slaves for generations. The passionate and revenge-hungry Marcelle goes with him, along with two more unexpected companions (sorry, no more details — I’m trying to avoid spoilers!). Their goal is to free the slaves — but first they must survive a conspiracy on their own planet, find their way through the portal, encounter a benevolent dragon who rules the Northlands of Starlight, and learn to work together before mistrust and mistakes destroy their hopes before they can even begin to be realized.

Masters and Slayers is a far more adult story than Starlighter. Marcelle, who avoids being the stereotypical “headstrong female” by virtue of her fears and deep frailties, tries her hardest to fight, dress, and guard herself like a man because of the serial-killer-style murder of her mother. While Adrian’s chivalry is noted and upheld, the very opposite attitudes of some villains (and the dragon habit of breeding their human slaves) gets more than a passing mention. The violence is also more realistic (read: gorier) and the villains more obviously despicable. But Masters and Slayers isn’t just “adult” in the sense of earning a higher content rating. It’s also deeper, more thought-provoking, and more disturbing in good ways — the kinds of ways that provoke us to compassion and force us to look more clearly at ourselves.

Had I not read Starlighter first, I might have found some of the plot intersections annoying (too many unexplained actions and dangling threads), but overall I thought the juxtaposition of the series works well — at least, so far! The worlds of Starlight and Major 4 are better developed in Masters and Slayers, and in my opinion, are noticeably cooler. I still found the mix of science and fantasy hard to settle into (our heroes wield swords, arrows, and axes, but local government forces use DNA to convict criminals; video comes into play, as does genome mapping, yet the setting is medieval in most other ways).

My overall opinion? I read Masters and Slayers in a matter of hours because Starlighter hooked me on the story enough to make me want to know what else is happening in it. After reading M&S, I’m even more hooked. I have questions, I care about certain characters, and I want closure. I was going to write that as a negative — I didn’t feel like Masters and Slayers offered much closure in anything. But when it comes right down to it, that just means I really want to read the next book. Recommended for discerning readers who enjoy fantasy and don’t mind tackling tough issues that don’t have easy answers.

I know that our CSFF tours are technically three days long, but lately I have a hard time saying all I want to say in three days. This interview was supposed to go up yesterday, but the post was getting long — so here we are. An interview of me by Joshua Gilman of JGills fame.

Joshua: So we have here the Author of the Seventh World Trilogy. Rachel Starr Thomson. Hello!

Rachel: Hello indeed.

Joshua: On a scale of one to super duper, how excited are you for this interview?

Rachel: I’d have to say super duperly. I’ve heard rumours of your mad interviewing skills.

Joshua: That was definitely the best possible answer! Now, people may not know this, but you are also a professional Editor. So we know you have excellent grammar. But as we all know, the best actors are the ones who can “act badly.” Please grammatically murder a sentence for us.

Rachel: Oh dear.

Joshua: That is only bad if you were trying to talk about “deer.”

Rachel: I never claimed to be an actor. Editors EDIT. Not ACT. Although sometimes they mumble dialogue they’re editing out loud.

Joshua: Well. Allow me to harrumph for a moment. Pauses….Harrumphs…clears throat. OK, different line of questioning.  The Seventh world Trilogy. Can you quickly sum it up for us?

Rachel: No. But I need to get better at that, so I’ll try. Six Gifted individuals fight to uncover the truth about their world before lies can destroy them all. (That’s really not very good.)

Joshua: You do realize that most people reading this already know what the Seventh World Trilogy is. Probably all the people who had no clue what it is stopped reading this interview right away. So you have nothing to worry about.

Rachel: Well, considering that I’ve spent the last two days introducing it to people, I suppose you’re right. But that doesn’t excuse me–I really DO have to get better at the elevator pitch. Once a guy at a show asked me what my books were about. It was terrible.

Joshua: Let’s pretend that I understand what an “elevator pitch” is, and keep going. Everyone who has read the first two books has their favorite characters, storylines, etc… But let’s talk about how YOU feel about them. This will be slightly offbeat. Hope you don’t mind. First question. If you were going to have a dinner party and invite 5 of your characters, who would they be?

Rachel: To a dinner party? Not Evelyn. And not any of the Earth Brethren. I suspect they’d make a mess.

Joshua: Just answer the question.

Rachel: I’d enjoy eating with the Pravikians: The Ploughman, Libuse, Huss, and maybe Jerome and Maggie. High class, intelligent, world-changing people.

Joshua: Mine would be Nicolas, Marja, Huss, Michael, and Miracle. You have many great characters. But I think I would get along with those ones best.

Rachel: Yeah, but I might worry about some of them at a dinner party. Chances of being invaded by an Order of the Spider hunting party or a big flock of birds would be too high.

Joshua: You have a wide variety of characters. Many many main characters. Is there any character that you really didn’t expect to play a prominent role who just kept on popping up in the story?

Rachel: Marja. And also Harutek.

Joshua: Hold the phone….Harutek hasn’t been very prominent in the first two books. Is this a small piece of insider info on the third book?!

Rachel: It might be .

Joshua: Swell. Following the same line of questioning: Is there a character who turned out differently than how you planned? Someone who refused to follow the “destiny” you had charted out for them?

Rachel: Well, my characters are generally pretty compliant–they don’t take over much. But most of the main characters took on life in ways I didn’t necessarily expect. The more mature Maggie of the third book is somewhat of a surprise to me, and Virginia has a scene near the end of Coming Day that surprised me.

Joshua: And therein lies a topic of discussion all its own. You just referenced Coming Day. But you’ve been discussing it as The Advent for the past year. I assume this is an official Title Change?

Rachel: It is, though I can’t promise it won’t go through another title change before the book comes out. That is unlikely, though–Coming Day is it unless some flash of absolute brilliance hits before November.

Joshua: So one more question about characters. Is there any character that you despise? As in one who became vital to the plot, but every time they arrive on the scene you think to yourself, “You….How I despise you. I wish I’d killed you off sooner.” I mean this on the character level, not in terms of how you think you’ve written them.

Rachel: No, not really. Some of the bad guys are really nasty, but they’re just so necessary to shape everyone else that I can’t wish them out of the series earlier. Which might be a profound commentary on the realities of life.

Joshua: That leads excellently to my next question. Some of your story is obviously allegorical. How much has been intentional and how much is people just reading into it?

Rachel: Really, the only directly allegorical element in the trilogy is the King — and even he isn’t an exact representation of Christ. But I believe that any really good story will point to all kinds of truth, and I hope the trilogy does that–gives readers lots they can “read in.”

Joshua: So let’s talk Origins. When did you get the idea for this whole story, and did you think of it as a continuing saga from the beginning?

Rachel: The story actually started coming together when I was reading about the first stirrings of the Reformation — in particular about Jan Hus and Jerome in Eastern Europe. Since I have a speculative brain, I transferred elements of that story into a fantasy/sci-fi world and started playing around with them. The original idea was actually much more futuristic. Then, at some point the characters of Maggie, Nicolas, and Virginia took shape, along with Michael and Miracle. Well, by the time I’d written a story for the first three, I realized Michael and Miracle needed a second book,
and that still didn’t really finish things, so the third one was also necessary.

Joshua: As any writer does, you obviously go through several drafts and revisions. Has any storyline turned out EXACTLY how you wanted it from start to finish?

Rachel: I’ve actually been pretty flexible with this series, so the storylines have developed as they’ve gone–there wasn’t really a master plan for any one storyline. But I’m happy with how everything has come together. It wasn’t easy with so many characters and storylines at once!

Joshua: Be as vague as you want, but what is something in this third book that you are most excited for your readers to see?

Rachel: The role of the Darkworlders. I knew when I introduced Rehtse into the story in Burning Light that she’d have to play a bigger role at some point, and she definitely does!

Joshua: Having gotten an advance look at it, I must say I agree with you there. She was my favorite new prominent character. Speaking of which, the Darkworlders were something of a big surprise to me reading Burning Light. I did not expect them to appear. Did you have them in your mind in the beginning or did they surprise you too?

Rachel: They weren’t there from the start–not from the Worlds Unseen start. But once the people of Pravik got underground and started going deeper, I realized something needed to be down there. What was down there was the Darkworld–a society that brings a whole new level of fascination and poignancy to the story.

Joshua: So here is a big question that I’m sure ALL your readers want to know: The Seventh World is vast, and you have MANY characters. They obviously all have stories that you never touch in these books. Is there any hope that you might revisit this world in your next 50 years of authoring?

Rachel: Well … yes. There is always hope . I can’t really see ever writing a sequel to the trilogy, but there’s a lot of backstory that could be explored.

Joshua: As a fan of your work myself, I say…”Splendid.” Thanks for doing this!

Rachel: Thank YOU.

Joshua: And I can’t wait for the official release of Coming Day. Unless you change the name again. Then I will “can’t wait” for that!

(First, an announcement: I’ve signed on as a regular contributor to the newly revamped Speculative Faith blog, along with Becky Miller and Stephen Burnett and Stuart Stockton. My first post, “The Stakes Are High,” is up today. Check it out.)

As I prepare for the release of Coming Day, Book 3 of the Seventh World Trilogy, I’ve been writing a website for the trilogy that will include book synopses, trivia, character profiles, reviews, and lots more. It’s not up yet, but I thought sharing some of its content would be a cool way to give you a look into the Seventh World.

About the World

The Seventh World’s geography is loosely based on that of our own world, as the story was originally written as a sort of alternate history — though that approach changed drastically as I wrote! Bryllan and the Green Isle correspond to Great Britain and Ireland (Cryneth is Wales; the Highlands, of course, are Scotland). Galce corresponds to France; the Eastern Lands to Eastern Europe; Italya to Italy/southern Europe; and the North to Scandinavia. These areas with their dramatic histories inspired geographic features, place names, and even some story details. But the correspondence is loose. The Seventh World has very much become a place of its own.

The lands of the Seventh World are gathered under the rule of the Morel Dynasty, an empire which has been in place since Lucius Morel conquered the tribes five hundred years before Worlds Unseen began–leaving only the wandering Gypsies to remind people of the way things once were. The Morel family has brought good to the Seventh World by bringing peace between its lands and peoples, but the empire also brings oppression and fear. It is the empire that constructs and runs the cruel Orphan Houses, and the empire’s High Police demand the service of young men from all over the Seventh World, tearing apart families and bringing ruin to the hearts of those who serve. The empire is antagonistic toward the Gypsies and sometimes persecutes them, and it levels heavy taxes on its people–especially in the Eastern Lands, where rebellion has long brewed.

In Worlds Unseen, the empire is under the rule of Lucien Morel. But lurking behind the scenes is the real key to the empire’s power and to its evil: the Order of the Spider, a mysterious group of black-cloaked figures who commune with the Blackness and wield terrible power.

A Few of the Characters

Maggie Sheffield
Chapter 1 of Worlds Unseen opens with Maggie, and even though it follows the paths of many other characters, the trilogy remains her story in a special way. Maggie grew up an orphan in Bryllan, living in the loveless, tyrannical Orphan House until she was adopted by Eva Cook. Time spent with John and Mary (Grant) Davies shaped Maggie’s tender spirit and desire to know the truth behind appearances. Throughout the story, Maggie grows in understanding and in courage, discovering along the way that she is the Singer, one of the Gifted whose purpose is to bring the King back into the world. (Worlds Unseen is primarily Maggie’s story.)

Nicolas Fisher
Nicolas Fisher enters the Seventh World Trilogy in Worlds Unseen when he rescues Maggie from seedy characters near the docks of Galce. Accompanied by his animal companion, Bear, Nicolas is a half-Gypsy who doesn’t feel that he belongs anywhere. Abandoned by his father, the child Nicolas was saved from life in the orphan houses by a band of Gypsies who took him in when his mother died. But his strange gift of hearing and his restless spirit drove him out from them too. Nicolas is truly a free spirit, courageous and clever, but afraid of loving too much or committing himself to anyone. As the trilogy progresses, Nicolas finds that his destiny is tied up with Maggie’s and that he must settle his wandering heart in the song of the King if he is to find his place in the world and save those he is learning to love from destruction. (Burning Light is primarily Nicolas’s story.)

Virginia Ramsey
Virginia Ramsey, the blind seer of the Highlands, has seen visions since childhood. When we meet her in Worlds Unseen, her ability to see into the hearts of others has made her an outcast from her village, and she is haunted by a vision of a great death hound hunting her down. Virginia is the first of the Gifted to be recognized by the Order of the Spider, so they are determined to capture her and use her power for themselves. But Virginia is also the first to see the King and commit to following him. He tells her that through her he will wake the world, and Virginia struggles to hang onto that promise as she fights those who hunt her and becomes a leader in the new world of Pravik. (Coming Day is primarily Virginia’s story.)

And NOW, a sneak peek at an interview! I often conduct author interviews as part of my tour posts. I felt, however, that conducting an interview with myself might be awkward. But that’s OK, because my friend and fellow blogger (the infamous JGills himself) happens to be visiting my family this week, and he agreed to do the conducting. I’m going to post the entire interview tomorrow because today’s post is getting ridiculously long, but here’s a preview:

Joshua: Some of your story is obviously allegorical. how much has been intentional and how much is people just reading into it?

Rachel: Really, the only directly allegorical element in the trilogy is the King — and even he isn’t an exact representation of Christ. But I believe that any really good story will point to all kinds of truth, and I hope the trilogy does that–gives readers lots they can “read in.”

Joshua: So let’s talk Origins. When did you get the idea for this whole story, and did you think of it as a continuing saga from the beginning?

Rachel: The story actually started coming together when I was reading about the first stirrings of the Reformation — in particular about Jan Hus and Jerome in Eastern Europe. Since I have a speculative brain, I transferred elements of that story into a fantasy/sci-fi world and started playing around with them. The original idea was actually much more futuristic. Then, at some point the characters of Maggie, Nicolas, and Virginia took shape, along with Michael and Miracle. Well, by the time I’d written a story for the first three, I realized Michael and Miracle needed a second book
and that still didn’t really finish things, so the third one was also necessary.

More to come tomorrow. Thanks for coming on this tour with me! If you’d like more info on the first two books, check out the Worlds Unseen and Burning Light book pages.

I stand behind a table laden with my books and talk to passers-by about my work, and as they stop and handle ink and paper and converse, they ask, “Where did you get your ideas? What led you to become a writer?”

I smile — such a simple question, such a not-simple answer. I was born a writer, I think. I tell them, “I’ve always told stories in my head. Eventually I just started putting them on paper.” Sometimes I look around and wonder if all these people, drifting by as families and couples and individuals, see stories everywhere like I do. If they get distracted from real life by imaginary creatures and possibilities and atmospheres. If we’re all storytellers and it’s just that some of us share and some of us don’t.

I don’t know — I think it’s possible that many people DON’T live in their heads like I do. But I wasn’t just born a writer, I realize. I was raised one, raised by the words and the music and the imaginations of others.

Like so many of the bloggers on this tour, my imagination was shaped by writers like J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh), Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking) and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia). George MacDonald was influential too (The Princess and Curdie; Lilith), and Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), and to a great degree Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three; Westmark; The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha). And not just because they wrote about fantastic worlds and talking creatures and magical events. Their very words shaped me. The way they used words, sentences, rhythms — prose and poetry — taught me how to write. They taught me that words mean things. That words make magic. In later years, other writers taught me. Stephen Lawhead, Guy Gavriel Kay, Jeff Overstreet, Bryan Polivka, Annie Dillard, Ray Bradbury, and a whole slew of 19th-century poets, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I was also raised by music and the stories it tells. (That probably has something to do with why I direct a dance company now!) My dad had thousands of vinyl records in his collection, of every genre and style. These days I still turn to music to tell me stories and to help me write mine. And just as fantasy is a bit off the mainstream when it comes to writing, so I like music that fuses styles and explores cultures and isn’t exactly Top 40. I listen to E.S. Posthumus, Kate Rusby, Deep Forest, AO, and Jeff Johnson; to Enigma, Era, Muse, and Coldplay (OK, there’s a little Top 40 in there); to Karan Casey and Velile and Alela Diane and Josh Garrells and innumerable movie soundtracks.

When you read the Seventh World books, you are reading my work. But you’re listening to echoes of the words and music and stories of others. In some way, we’re all making up one big tapestry of literature and art, influencing and inspiring and being influenced and inspired. And behind all that is reality, the real reality of spirit and creation and the God who is really there, and that underlying presence is bringing us up as writers and artists just as surely as any other.

Who are some of your inspirations?

Welcome to August’s CSFF Tour and something … rather different. As you probably know, every month, the CSFF Tour Bloggers read, review, and heatedly happily discuss a new title that falls under the Christian speculative fiction umbrella. Well, we were going to do that this month too, but the title fell through.

SO, we are having a special tour called “Your Favorite!” in which we get to talk about anything we like as long as it’s Christian and spec and fic.

First order of business: voting is on for the Clive Staples Award! Please to visit these links and put in your qualified vote:

Clive Staples Award voting information - http://clivestaplesaward.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/2010-clive-staples-award-voting/
Clive Staples List of Nominations - http://clivestaplesaward.wordpress.com/2010-nominations-complete-list/

Second order of business: Becky Miller (our Fearless Leader) said that we could write about anything including our own books. Well, I wasn’t going to do that, because it feels self-serving. But then some good friends of mine got rather insistent about it, so I capitulated. Presenting Worlds Unseen and Burning Light, books 1 and 2 of the Seventh World Trilogy (Book 3, currently titled Coming Day, is due to be released in November):

A trilogy description:

Warrior, Singer, Seer, Healer, Listener, Voice.

For five hundred years the Seventh World has been ruled by a tyrannical empire and the mysterious Order of the Spider that hides in its shadow. History and truth are deliberately buried, the beauty and treachery of the past remembered only by wandering Gypsies, persecuted scholars, and a few unusual seekers. But the past matters, as Maggie Sheffield soon finds out — it matters because its forces will soon return and claim lordship over her world, for good or evil.

An orphan, Maggie’s steps have been dogged by tragedies she’s always seen as disconnected. But when a dying friend appears on her doorstep with proof that the empire is lying about the source of its power — proof in the form of an ancient scroll — she learns that her own tragedies have been part of a deliberate plan to crush the truth. Convinced of the scroll’s importance, Maggie agrees to carry it to the only man who can read it, a scholar who lives across the sea in the eastern reaches of the continent.

Maggie’s journey connects her with rebels and dreamers and makes her the enemy of terrifying shadow creatures and the powers of the empire. And so the past is revealed, and an ancient war begins again, with the Gifted at the heart of it: Six individuals whose powerful gifts point to a world beyond their own. The Singer, the Seer, the Healer, the Listener, the Warrior, and the Voice must join together to show their world what is true and what is false — and in the process, to save them all from the evil that lies at their door.

The Seventh World Trilogy is an epic fantasy, beautiful, terrifying, pointing to the realities just beyond the world we see.

You can download Worlds Unseen in its entirety for free, and the first 50 pages of Burning Light are also available from my Smashwords page: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rachelstarrthomson

I have lots on the agenda for the next couple of tour days: an interview with me by my insistent friends (which should be, um, interesting), tips of the hat to authors and books that have inspired me and mine, recommendations of my favourite writing music, and some thoughts on writing fantasy. And also more info on some of the characters, history, and world of my stories. Thanks for coming along.

In the meantime, the CSFF Blog Tour is a showcase of fascinating people who may be talking about all sorts of favourite things, so check them out. Here they be:

Brandon Barr
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Jeff Chapman
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
George Duncan
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Mike Lynch
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Jason Waguespac
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

This summer I’ve stepped out and started doing something I knew I should have been doing a long time ago: selling my books at live events. I already do this at Soli Deo Gloria Ballet productions, where we always have a product table afterward where we meet our audiences. And I did a homeschool conference in early 2009 that went well. But now I’m talking about going into live events purely for the cause of selling books.

There’s a writer’s group in a town about 45 minutes from me that sometimes teams up to do events, so this year I shared a booth with other local self-published writers at an arts fair and then again at a winery for a weekend-long community event. I’ve also done a local craft show. I’ve found the shows worth doing.

Here’s why:

• Finances. I manage to sell enough books at these events to pay me pretty well for a weekend’s attendance.
• Exposure. The more I’m out in the community with my books, the more I’m gaining face, title, and name recognition. These few live events have already led to my books being carried in a local bookstore, one of my books being reviewed in a local newspaper, and more and more people starting to say, “I’ve heard of you!”
• Interaction. It’s no secret that writing is a lonely job. Getting out means I get to interact with people — readers — all day long. Now, I’m not an especially social person, but I do enjoy reaching out. I also get to witness to my faith, because (cool thing!) people ask about what underlies my stories.

If you’re self-published (or published some other way) consider booking yourself into local events and see where it takes you. If nothing else, it’s excellent training in face-to-face marketing!

Writer’s Digest has been putting out some really great articles lately. I loved this article by a fellow writer with the most excellent name of Perry P. Perkins. It’s a VERY nuts and bolts look at how you can make it as a freelance writer, with a good hard look at financial realities and tips on how to use Writer’s Market to expand your pastures and even come up with ideas.

One afternoon, while I sat staring at my monitor, I scribbled the following formula on a handy rejection letter (they make great scrap paper, you know):

(ei/ts) x x = gi

I know what you’re thinking: “Huh?” As a former straight “C” math student, I’m not usually given to scribbling equations of any kind. When we go out to eat, my wife usually has to figure the tip (that’s what happens when you marry a writer).

Still, I can add and subtract as well as the average sixth-grader, and I realized that if X number of submissions equals Y number of dollars, the easiest way to increase my income would be to increase my number of submissions. And thus the formula: TS stands for “Total Submissions.” This includes every written work and query I’ve sent off for possible publication in the last year, whether it resulted in an acceptance or not. EI is “Earned Income”: every penny brought in from my writing in the same period of time. And X is the factor by which I realized I’d need to increase my submissions to reach my Goal Income (GI). Put all this together, and you have a mathematical breakdown of any freelance writing career:

(Earned Income divided by Total Submissions) times X = Goal Income

Now, of course, the process of writing and submitting your work is not an exact science, but what this equation does is illuminate the overall average you need to hit to achieve your writing goals. The simple truth is, if you can produce quality work, then the only other factor you can control is how many paying markets you’re giving the opportunity to compensate you for that work. After “doing the math” I increased my average daily submissions from 2.5 to 15, and my sales figures exploded. Within 90 days, I was achieving my income goals.

Here’s how doing the math can work for you, too.

Read the rest of “How to Reach Your Freelance Goals” here. And leave some feedback — I know most of you write books. Have you considered branching into the freelancer’s world of magazines? Why or why not?

In the village of Tebron, surrounded by forests and peaceful mountains, Joran works as an apprentice blacksmith because his unusually sharp ability to mindspeak with animals has made forestry, hunting, and fishing too painful an occupation. He is painfully aware of his difference from his brothers, whom he loves but is unlike. Joran is slender, gentle, contemplative, and quietly desperate, wishing above all things to feel true happiness with his beautiful wife Charris, to feel that he belongs.

When Charris betrays Joran, he sends her away in a fit of passionate anger. But then come the dreams, tormenting him night after night: dreams in which he climbs to a sandcastle above the sea where Charris is trapped in ice, and he struggles to free her while sweeping blackness clutches at the back of his neck and the lunatic moon looks on and laughs. And then come the encounters: the great wolf watching him from the fringes of the wood, the crazy old goose woman with her riddles, and finally the most frightening encounter of all — the discovery that Charris, sent home to her relatives, has disappeared into thin air.

Unable to live any longer with himself and without answers, Joran sets off on a journey, joined by the giant wolf Ruyah, that will take him to the ends of the earth — to the Hovel of the Moon, the Palace of the Sun, the Cave of the Wind, and finally the Unimaginable Sea — and to the depths of his own dreams. His is a search for his wife, for the truth, for answers, and for peace. The way is made bearable by Ruyah’s wise, playful, and always caring presence, a presence that means far more than Joran can imagine.

The Wolf of Tebron by C.S. Lakin is being hailed as a modern-day fairy tale, which it certainly is at heart, though its characterization is richer than a typical fairy tale’s. Joran’s struggles with himself are intensely human. In an irony that struck me as particularly true to the Christian life, Joran does not want to be a hero and in fact would not be one were it not for Ruyah pushing, leading, and saving him at every step. Every spark of heroism in him rises in response to the heroism of another. At the same time, he is a likable hero, with pain and struggles that are poignant and relatable.

Not a simple allegory, The Wolf of Tebron nonetheless employs allegory and symbol in great measure, and Ruyah’s wise sayings — “It is said among wolves . . .” — come from sources as varied as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Carl Jung. (Chesterton, I think, would have enjoyed being a wolf.) It’s a book meant to inspire thought. Its story of redemption is thoroughly Christian at heart, though some of the allusions to life as a dream, reality as a matter of the will, and looking inside yourself could be just as easily interpreted through a non-Christian lens. It’s also a thoroughly enjoyable adventure story, with exotic settings, unpredictable turns, a terrifying enemy, and unexpected humour.

Lakin’s work is stylistically beautiful. The exotic locales are vivid, from dark north to burning desert to misty jungle: I found myself looking forward to each leg of Joran’s journey just so I could experience another part of her story world. The Wolf of Tebron is the first in The Gates of Heaven series from Living Ink Books (AMG Publishers). I’m looking forward to The Map Across Time, Book 2 in the series.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book free of charge.

So, I’ve been given two blog awards in the last little while. I’m often really bad about blog awards because they catch me unawares while I’m really busy, but this time I thought I’d acknowledge them!

So first, I won this one for “exuding overall brilliance.” I am not sure why I won a Christian Science Award, but hey, if they feel my blog exudes brilliance, I say thanks.

PhD Online Programs

I was also awarded this “The Versatile Blogger Award” by the RBC Library Blog, one of my fellow CSFF bloggers:

Like most reader’s awards, it has rules. Here they are:

1) Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them when creating the award post.

2) Share seven things about yourself.

3) Pass the award on to 15 recently discovered blogs.

4) Contact the bloggers to let them know about the award.

And here is my response:

Seven Things About Me

1. I live in two different places, five hours from each other, and ping-pong back and forth.

2. Museums make me cry.

3. Last-minute road trips or flights across the country make me feel strangely at home.

4. I might be a workaholic.

5. I only just started drinking coffee. (Yes! I’m a grown-up!)

6. I co-direct a ballet company but personally have no dance ability or experience.

7. I have a pact with myself to never accumulate more stuff than can fit neatly and comfortably into my living space. Which at the moment is one medium-sized bedroom. I have managed to keep this pact for my 27 years of life thus far.

Deserving Blogs (Not 15 . . . I Apologize . . . I Just Don’t Spend a Lot of Time Reading Blogs)

Inky Girl
JGills’s Home of Whatever
Beck Loves Music
The Rabbit Room
Words and Music
Cardiphonia
Whatever State I Am
Writer’s Nook
There Are No Rules
The Freelance Life (actually a podcast)