as I launch into the final phase of preparation for my novel – I’m about to write the final draft of the outline, eek!! – I want to start ramping up my promotion of my baby! A God Grown Old is going to be AWESOME… and this is your chance to be a part of it. a real part of it.
so yes, this is a giveaway for a guest appearance in my novel!
I’m still in planning mode, so I’m not giving away too much about the book itself, but here are a few tidbits that should give you a feel for what I’m going to be writing:
- it’s set in the Middle East and North Africa, around 200 AD.
- it’s a re-telling of a famous myth, but from an unusual point of view.
- the main character is a dragon, and the four primary secondary characters (shhhh, it makes sense) are two humans, an Egyptian wolf, and a karkadann.
your character could be just about any animal, creature, or human that would exist in this kind of story-world (remember, this is a myth, so traditional African mythical creatures are welcome as well). you can choose to include an OC you haven’t written into something, or you can have yourself wandering through the wilds of Libya. I am happy to take any name and set of characteristics so long as I can find a creative way to work him, her, or it in to the story.
want to enter? rules rules rules!
- you must be following me. I know, I know, but I don’t post more than two or three times a day max, so I won’t be flooding your dash. plus, if the book sounds like something you’d like to read, you may want to stay informed anyway!
- you may reblog twice and like once. each will be considered an entry, for up to three entries.
- you may follow me on Twitter (AGodGrownOld) for one entry.
- I will be choosing the winner randomly on Monday, April 23rd, and contacting them by the next day. so basically you have ten days from the start of the contest to get your entries in!
I think that’s everything! if you want some more details about A God Grown Old, I am happy to answer some specific questions via my ask, but I’m kind of keeping it under wraps to some extent until I’m a little further along.
thanks for reading, following, reblogging, or snorting with derision! 😉
– August
Conversations with myself
I’m sure that if mental physicians everywhere had their way, I (and many other writers) would be diagnosed with something serious. I’ve been writing Serious Character Bios (read: three handwritten pages per main character, which so far is six pages and will eventually be 15), and this has caused me to love my characters. Even my antagonist. Which is good, because even villains have mothers who love them (or something).
Anyway, now that I’ve fleshed out Cleo and George, in particular, I’ve started to have conversations with them. Sometimes this involves acting like I’m listening to said fictional entity telling me about themselves or a situation; sometimes I take on the role of the character and monologue to myself while in the bathroom (no, not while it’s otherwise occupied, I’m not that confident in my ability to prove my sanity). It’s actually a helpful exercise, because it plays on my one strength as a public speaker: spontaneity. I like to connect dots that were never supposed to be connected, and this happens best when my brain is in GO mode without the ability to censor a connection before I can see where it goes. Having conversations with myself is kind of my version of freewriting, especially because I’m slow to write by hand and typed freewrites feel like cheating. Weird quirk, right?
What kinds of quirks do you indulge in as far as your writing practice?
Unintentional symbolism
Symbolism and motifs are one of those integral parts of a good, solid novel that I tend to overlook. Either that, or I make it uber-obvious. I’ve been trying to explore some possibilities for motifs in A God Grown Old and before last night I was totally stumped.
Then I started reading up on historical Libyan food and dining rituals. One of the things that stuck out to me was that three cups of green tea are consumed at the end of every meal. While green tea is by no means native to Libya, it does appear to be a commodity they purchased from the traders coming in from the Far East as early as 800 BC. That fits nicely into my timeline, so I think sharing a cup of green tea is something two of my characters will do as a representation of their relationship.
I had to make a trip to the library the other day (avoiding the bus tunnels as long as I could and all that) and ended up walking out with two useful books: The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers and The Hero With an African Face by Clyde Ford. I needed information on the history of the karkadann (my previously made-up unicorn species has been switched to this no-less-elusive but appropriately “real” critter from Arabian mythology) as well as a little extra depth to my African characters and their belief system. I perused Ford’s book this morning and pulled out quite a few useful gems for the Princess, and I’ll take a look at the unicorn book very soon.
Research is surprisingly fun!