Yay!!!

I'm excited!  I wrote a "short story" (not so short - around 10,000 words) for the Western Ohio Writers' Association, where I'm a member.  Since I was trying to get it finished in time for the October meeting where members would be reading at Books & Co. in The Greene (in Beavercreek OH), I wrote a ghost story/horror/suspense kind of thing, not at all my usual genre (magical fantasy with a bit of romance involved).  I was very insecure about how it turned out.  Did I create enough suspense?  Did I withhold the clues long enough?  Did I give too much away?  Did the suspense build?  Did I manage to save the "surprise" until the end?

Well . . . I wasn't able to go to the October meeting, so I just kept working on the story because it intrigued me as a project.  Then I heard about an anthology project that sounded interesting.  I decided to polish that story and see if it would get in.  It was all I had since I normally write novels.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure to learn it was accepted to the anthology!  It will be published late this year.  I'll have ordering information both here and on my website when it's available!

The story is called "Lisa Goodman, Writer."  I've been given a detailed critique to help me rewrite it for publication.  And no, I can't tell you any more about it except it takes place in Dayton (which doesn't have a lot to do with the story - but that really is all I can tell you about it!  LOL).

So HUZZAH!!!!  My attempting a totally different genre wasn't a horrible failure (which I feared it might be!).  I'm a happy camper!

Ahhh, that's better . . . "Tolt" and "Star Sons 2" news!!

I finally saw what was bothering me about the rider's face.  I knew something was a bit off, but I couldn't quite figure out how to fix it.  Then I saw it.  The eyes were set too high (by about 1/16th of an inch), and the place where the nose dips in toward the eyes was set in the wrong place (by an even smaller margin).  So today I put dabs of clay in the places where the eyes were, smoothed that out and started over - not my favorite thing to do, especially on something as delicate and difficult to create as the eyes on this rider.  But I did it, and revised the shape of her cheekbones somewhat, her temples and browbone, the nose, and even brought the brim of the helmet lower and trimmed some off the top of the helmet.  I like it a lot better now.  I think I need to broaden the lower cheeks and jaw just a tiny bit on each side, and then it just might look like my customer!  YAY!  Here are some pictures to show what I accomplished today.

I know her helmet still needs straps, but I'm not going to add them until I'm satisfied with her face.

As you may be able to see from the pictures above, and will certainly see in the picture below, I also started working on the mane, getting the masses of the flying mane and forelock somewhat defined on one side, as well as filling in holes and undercuts so it will cast well.

I think this will be a beautiful piece!  I'm excited to see it coming together so well!

In other news, I've finished the revisions on my second "Star Sons" novel (titled "The Gathering Alliance") and am printing it out right now for a final read-through to make sure I haven't missed anything in proofreading.  The cover art is finished and there are only a few details to complete before it will be ready for publication.  HUZZAH!!!  I'll post ordering info here and on Facebook and my Yahoo groups when it's ready to go.  It will be available from me as well as from Amazon.com, BN.com and various other outlets. You will also be able to order it in your local bookstore with its ISBN number.  I'm excited to have this finished!  YAAAY!!

Percy Jackson vs. Harry Potter

We went to see "The Lightning Thief" last week (http://www.percyjacksonthemovie.com/), the first of the Percy Jackson books to make it to film.  I haven't read the books, so this post is going to be comparing the Percy Jackson film to the Harry Potter films (http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com especially the first two HP films which were directed by the "Percy Jackson" director, Chris Columbus).  I won't be comparing films to books or books to books.

My husband hasn't read any Harry Potter books nor has he read the Percy Jackson books.  He's not much of a fan of fantasy, honestly.  But on our way home from the film, we were struck by the differences between Harry and Percy, their strengths and weaknesses and other characteristics.  Percy came up short in every way. 

The hero in a film, novel or story has to capture your imagination, be sympathetic, charming and likable in various ways even if he's not a totally nice guy.  The depth of his character development will depend on if the story or film is character-driven or story-driven.  In Harry's case, although his stories are adventures and full of action, the center of interest for the story is Harry himself, his character, his goodness of heart (even if he does break the rules every so often, he's a good kid), the serious way he looks at his life, his "saving people thing."  In Percy's case, the adventure is the thing, and not much is done to develop his character.

While both boys have adventures (well, in Harry's case, it's more of a mystery than an adventure at first) starting at the beginning of their films, the emphasis isn't the same and the results are hugely different.  Do we care about Harry?  Absolutely.  Do we care about Percy?  Not that much.  Why the difference?

In Harry's case, he's a genuinely nice boy who's kind, generous and protective of his friends.  Percy seems like a nice enough kid, and he's kind and generous too, but he also has no qualms at all about killing someone, and when he loses someone close to him, his pain is so brief, you wonder how much pain he actually felt.

Harry has a melancholy nature because he lost his parents when he was a baby and grew up with horrible relatives.  Percy isn't melancholy, but he is somewhat rebellious.  Of course, we meet him when he's a teenager, not a young boy like Harry, and Percy has his mom, who he loves, and a horrible stepfather.  One of the things I noticed about Percy early on was that his rages, rebellion and everything else are mild compared to those of many teenagers.  He doesn't seem to feel anything to any extreme, certainly not as much as Harry does.

Percy hasn't been beaten down throughout his childhood the way Harry was.  Harry's a survivor with a strong moral compass.  He got through his childhood on his own, with no outside help, and he has a good sense of right and wrong despite the way he was treated by his relatives.  He has depths to his personality that just doesn't show in Percy.

Percy's had plenty to eat, a relatively normal childhood (he takes the usual classes, although he does have a learning disability, and seems to have friends at school, unlike pre-Hogwarts Harry; he has clothes that fit  him; there's no "Dudley" to make his home and school life hellish).  Percy's had a protector all his life (his best friend) as well as his mom.  The only real hardship he's had to deal with is his stepfather.  Yet of the Percy's the one with the "I'll do whatever it takes" attitude from the beginning of his adventure that includes breaking all kinds of laws, no remorse about damaging property, stealing things, or injuring other people.   You might expect Harry, who's been abused all his life, to have that kind of attitude, but the only "I'll do whatever it takes" attitude we see out of Harry is when his "saving people thing" kicks in.  He will do whatever it takes to rescue someone, even at the cost of his own life, and it doesn't take Harry long at all to decide to jump into such situations.

Harry will do the very best he can in adversity, but he will also hope for help since he feels inadequately prepared to deal with the dangers facing him.  Despite his lack of training, he always rises to the occasion.  He succeeds with the  help of his friends, but also because of his own courage and good character.  Percy has a demi-goddess as a sidekick and another "super-friend" helping him, but there's more of an "I did this" feeling to Percy than there is to Harry, who always credits his friends for their help, even if what they did seems minimal to the rest of us in comparison to Harry's efforts.

Harry's modest about what he can do and embarrassed when someone praises him.  Percy seems to take such things in stride, and not just because he's a teenager.  When Harry's Percy's age (in the later films), he's still modest about his accomplishments and still says he had "a lot of help" while in truth, it was nearly all Harry's great courage, power and sheer luck that got him through the crisis.

These films are fantasy, yup, but Harry's films show him learning how to do what he needs to do, while Percy, who's a demi-god (half-human son of Poseidon) picks up a sword and immediately knows how to beat other more experienced people his age in training.  Harry has to learn how to use his powers and how to analyze situations so he can deal with them.  Percy just goes from high school kid with learning disabilities to demi-god hero without having to learn any skills to speak of and with no real mishaps on the way to becoming skilled.  He gets some weapons and is instantly the master of them.

Perhaps the difference between them is that Harry is human and Percy is a demi-god but I prefer Harry's humanity.  It's obvious that he cares when his friends are hurt.  Harry's scared to death yet faces danger bravely despite the full knowledge that he's very likely to die from the danger he's about to deal with.  Percy sort of stumbles through things but never seems to be scared, and he laughs when he survives a battle, unlike Harry who suffers through his recovery both emotionally and physically.  Harry gets hurt in battle, Percy doesn't.

Being a demi-god doesn't mean Percy can't be killed, yet he never seems that afraid of what he's getting into.  Nor do we see  him plucking up his courage the way we do Harry.  Percy just jumps headlong in to whatever he's about to do.  Harry dreads what he has to do, but faces the worst with grim determination despite his fear.  Harry is human.  Harry's much more heroic and a far more complex character than Percy.

The Percy Jackson film and the first two Potter films were all directed by Chris Columbus.  I don't think Columbus slacked off in  his direction of an experienced teenage actor (Logan Lerman, who plays Percy) versus his direction of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, who was many years younger than Logan and a much less experienced actor at the time.  I think it must be the writing of the characters themselves that's the difference.

Even in the first HP film, Harry has a depth of character that Percy just doesn't exhibit.  He's horrified to have killed Professor Quirrell, despite the fact that he was fighting for his life.  Percy gives his most serious opponent a moment to decide if he's going to surrender or not, but when he doesn't, Percy does away with him with no apparent remorse but more of a "good riddance" attitude.  Yes, Harry was a young boy when he killed Quirrell, but even in the later films when he's around Percy's age, while Harry is determined to kill his enemies, you can tell that it costs him something to even contemplate it.

Remember, I'm not talking about the books here, since I haven't read any of the Percy Jackson books.  But based on the films, Harry at any age we've seen so far is more sensitive and has a wider emotional range than Percy.  Harry's rages are harsher than Percy's and  his joy is more palpable as well.

Harry normally doesn't kill without remorse, although when he kills Voldemort, he won't be sorry he killed them.  There will be a cost to his spirit and we will see that.  And remember, Harry doesn't use the Unforgivable Curses properly because he isn't a cruel enough person to manage it.  Harry tries to disarm his opponents rather than kill them.  He uses "Expelliarmus" instead of "Avada Kedavra."

Percy deliberately uses lethal force, knowing exactly what the consequences will be.  Percy also doesn't seem to be that bothered by killing someone he thought was a friend at first.  It's his lack of remorse, his lack of moral depth that bothers me and led to this blog post.  It's also what prompted my husband, who cares very little about fantasy, to talk about it on the way home from the film.

Could the difference between Harry and Percy be in the skills of the actors portraying them?  Possibly, but Logan is a very experienced actor, one who's been nominated for a lot of awards and won three (I checked www.imdb.com).  Daniel is a gifted actor (nominated for a lot of awards and won 19 so far) who was so well-cast as Harry that he didn't need a lot of experience to play him well as he honed his acting skills.  Dan's growing skills have added layers of complexity to his portrayal of Harry, but still, I think the basic morality of the characters is based in the writing, not in the acting or directing.

When you're creating characters in your writing, I try to give them depth as well as a lot of action.  When I read,  watch TV or films, or write my own fiction, I want to see complex characters who are torn by the things they have to do to deal with the adventures facing them.  Some people prefer to write action with very little character development, but to me, a more entertaining story is where I see how the action reveals and develops the character of those involved.

Will I see more Percy Jackson films?  I don't  honestly know - perhaps I will.  But I will definitely see the last two HP films.  I'm looking forward to seeing how Dan will play the darkest scenes in Harry's life.  I'm sure it will be a rich and layered portrait of a good man who has more required of him than anyone should ask.  I think Logan is probably capable of greater things but he needs better material to work with.  It will be intersting to see both of these young actors mature and develop their craft. 

I wish them both lots of excellent scripts and talented directors and co-stars.  And I'll continue to work hard to create richly layered characters with great moral depths in my writing, as well as great adventures.

Random weirdness, etc.

Random weirdness - I typed the URL for my blog into the URL box and it redirected me TWICE to a Warner Brothers page!  Then when I tried it again, I got a dropdown list showing my blog's address and my blog's address with a redirect to the Warner Bros. "landing page"!  What's up with that?!

More random weirdness - Today's one of those days when spam shows up in my Yahoo inbox sprinkled randomly throughout all the e's there, yet they don't always drive up the "unread mail" count.  Why is that, and why are there some days, just every so often, when all these spams just dump themselves into my inbox rather than the spam box?

Etc. - I've been getting emails from readers of "Star Sons" wanting to know when the second book will be out.  Well . . . I've been stuck in rewrite-land, but the biggest problem is that I still have not come up with a decent title for it!  But I'm slugging away at it and hope to have it published by late winter/early spring.

Meanwhile, the HP story is coming along nicely, but once I get to a place where I've caught up with the ideas I had for the first part of that novel, I'm gonna concentrate on Star Sons 2.  SS2 began as a Nanowrimo novel ("National Novel Writing Month," which is November each year - writers who take the challenge try to write 50,000 words of a novel during November.  I got 90,000 words of SS2 done during Nanowrimo - it's now over 120,000 words, IIRC).  Finishing the revisions in November would be poetic or something.  :D

Off to do my writing for the day . . .

Lack of sleep

Why is it that my creative juices always flow the best when I'm asleep?  If I'm truly immersed in a story I'm writing, I will dream entire scenes and hear the dialog in each character's voice.  I can even rerun the scene in my dreams and edit or revise the dialog.  But when I wake up . . . I'm exhausted because I've worked all night!  I relish these times when my creative juices get fired up that way because that means I'm going to be very productive creatively during the day, but it sure would be nice if I could get some restful sleep at least part of the night!

Right now, my creative juices are flowing on a new HP story as well as trying to design a costume for my horse and myself for the Halloween show at Dancing Horse Farm (where both horse and rider are required to be in costume - argh!).  I've also gotten the go-ahead from my commission customer for the Icelandic Horse portrait she's hired me to do.  She's decided to go larger than we originally planned, which means the horse will be 13 1/2 inches tall at the withers, the biggest one I've done so far.  With the rider on, I'm wondering if I'll even be able to lift it when it's bronze!  Hopefully I will, but the best part is that being that big, the tack and the facial details of the rider will be SO much easier to do!  Working at 1/8 to 1/6 lifesized as I normally do, those parts are teensy-tiny!!  So I'm excited about working that big and seeing how well I can capture the horse and rider with that much room for good detail!  And my Andalusian stallion sculpture is ready to be cleaned up, finally.  I've had to fight with the mane and tail to get them where I wanted them, and then when I thought it was finished, I noticed that one hoof was smaller than the others.  Unless you sculpt, you have no idea how hard it is to add about one millimeter of clay to a part and get it smooth and shaped right and perfect.  I had to resculpt the whole hoof to make it work - it was about an hour's work, just on that one hoof, but now it matches the others!  Yay!  Now if I could just get a good night's sleep!

Writing vs. Rewriting

My HP story was off to a really good start - great opening, good scenes, good plot, everything moving along well when I realized I needed to explain some stuff.  Enter the flashback, which I hoped would be brief!  Unfortunately, I needed to share more detail in that flashback than was reasonable, and the flashback became unwieldy.  I finally had to stop working on the story.  I couldn't get it to move forward the way I wanted it to.  I liked it less and less, although I still loved the beginning of it.  If not for that beginning, I would've started over days ago!  I had even gone to the extent of writing out notes on the plot on note cards, something I've never found necessary or useful other than to keep track of character names and who died when, that kind of thing, but even that didn't help. 

Finally, I had to admit there was nothing to do but start over. So yesterday, I didn't even open the old file so my mind wouldn't be distracted by that truly lovely opening!  It took a bit of doing to get started, but once I got the story going, it rolled along quite nicely!  I wrote ten pages (and that's single-spaced!) yesterday!  I usually write much faster than that, but I've been truly stymied for a while.  I just couldn't bear to give up the lovely opening I'd written for the other one.  I will see if I can use it in this version, but if I can't, that's okay.  I'll keep the old version to look at from time to time and perhaps I'll find a way to use those opening paragraphs someplace else someday.  I sure hope so - they just SANG!!  But they were singing the wrong song for this fic!

When I get to the point of needing to stop writing today, I hope to have enough energy left to get back to polishing my novel, which I really need to finish.  I got frustrated with it and put it aside so I wouldn't ruin it by working on it while I was annoyed with it.  Sometimes that's the best thing to do for both writing and art.  If you're annoyed by what you're working on, that isn't the time to be working on it, IMO.

I got the mane finished on "Feather" today.  I need to rename him - "Feather" is his name as a Pegasus.  As a stallion, he should have some other name, but I don't know what.  Something else to ponder . . .  Anyway, I just have to finish detailing his tail and clean him up and I can ship him to the foundry, YAY!  I'm eager to see him in bronze.  I think he's going to be a really nice piece!

Happy Labor Day, y'all!  As a British friend commented today when he wished me a happy "Labour Day," it really is an oxymoron, since most folks spend the day doing anything but labor!  As for me, I'm plugging away at my usual work, sculpting and writing, while my husband finishes tearing down an old shed that's needed to be taken down for years.  He's nearly done with it.  The yard already looks much nicer with that eyesore gone!

Whether you "labor" or play or sleep all day, have a happy day!

What fun!!!!

I uploaded the first chapter of my novel, Star Sons: Dawn of the Two (which will be published soon) to my HP Yahoo group and to my writing group, as well as to the publishing website (http://www.whspubs.com/). I was nervous as could be, exposing my "baby" to the world that way, but it's gotta get out there and be read if it's gonna be successful!! Imagine my delight when I got a bunch of responses very quickly, all cheering and delighted with it and wanting to know when and where they can buy it! YES! That's sweet music to my ears!!!!

The book's cover is being set up now - as soon as it's ready to go, the book will be printed! YIPPEE!!!!!!!! Can't wait to have it in my hands!!! Exciting times here!

It's a lot more work than it looks like . . .

Getting a book published, that is. Yikes! I've gone through my novel close to thirty times now (I lost track a LONG time ago - it may be a lot more than that!), editing, polishing, proofreading, editing and polishing again, proofreading again, sending it to my group of readers and my copy editor for their input, editing/polishing/proofreading after input from each of them, etc. Then there's the proofreading after sending it to the typesetter. Thank goodness he's a patient man, because it's absolutely amazing how different the manuscript looks when it's typeset! I found errors that should've been caught in all the other proofreading and copy editing, which are being fixed, thanks to a kind-hearted typesetter. And today I sent him my final read-through. Once he fixes the few glitches I found (missing quote marks here and there - tiny things like that), it'll be done!

The BIGGEST headache to me has been coming up with a synopsis for the novel. I write long-form (novels) - short stuff is HARD for me! But with the help of a lot of writing friends, I finally managed to come up with one that's 150 words (which was my goal) and seems to be pretty eye-catching. Hopefully it will intrigue people enough that they'll want to buy my book! Telling the story is the easy part (124,000 words later, I'm a happy camper with a told story!). SELLING the story is HARD (synopsis, queries, whatever else - argh) - for me, at least.

Today I had the very great pleasure of looking at my second novel's manuscript for the first time in a very long time. I wrote the bulk of it (57,000 words) during Nanowrimo last year. It's now about 90,000 words and finished in first draft form. Now I can polish and refine it. I can't wait!

I'm supposed to be working on a short story for an anthology too. I need to get my first novel out of my head a bit so I can work with completely different characters, plot, setting, etc., and in short form, which isn't as easy for me as novels. (My second novel is a continuation of the series I started with the first one.) Various things about the short story intrigue me a lot - I just have to get immersed in it to get it going. With "Star Sons" out of my hair for a little while, anyway, hopefully I can immerse myself in the story of Robin and Cricket (Robin being a young woman, Cricket a cat with a tale to tell).

Watch for "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" to appear on Amazon.com in a few weeks!! YIPPEE!!

The Friesian Extravaganza!

The Friesian Extravaganza is now over (whew!) and I'm about to leave for Equine Affaire in W. Springfield Mass. (if you get up there, I'll be in the Better Living Center, booth 517-518 - come say "Howdy!"). The Friesian show was my best show EVER! The first night, before it was unveiled (!), my Artist's Proof of the "Friesian Elegance" bronze was sold! And the same lady bought two more bronzes! I had a few other sales that weekend too, and several folks interested in commissioning portraits of their horses, or in talking their spouses into buying one or more of my existing bronzes. YAY! I could use more shows like THAT one!! It was great fun, too!!



The photo to the left shows me carrying the Concours d'Elegance trophy (which features my bronze "Friesian Elegance") away after the awards ceremony in which it was presented for the first time. It will reside at the FHANA headquarters at the Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington KY, with this year's winner's name inscribed on the first of the fifty name plates around the trophy base (the small plates you can see in this picture). I wound up carrying it all the way around the arena to get to the vendor area, where I had to wrap it up for its trip to its new home in Kentucky. On the way around the ring, I stopped and let people look at it as much as they wanted. That was great fun for me!

I had such a good time at the show, and my customer who commissioned the bronze was kind enough to let me ride one of his horses! I'd told him I wanted to ride in a carriage behind Nanning (his stallion) or just sit on a Friesian, or be led around like a pony ride, I didn't care. This was my best-ever chance to get on a Friesian and I wanted the chance, if at all possible. Imagine my absolute JOY when his wife and trainer came to my booth and his wife said, "I understand you want to ride a Friesian? We'll be ready for you in 15 minutes." YAY! Long story short, I not only got to sit on a gorgeous Friesian mare, but I also got to do whatever I wanted with her! So I walked, trotted and cantered her and had a BLAST! The pics aren't very good because of us being in an indoor arena, but here's a pic of me having an absolutely wonderful time on this lovely mare, who had just won the Friesian World Championship in Intro Dressage! (Good thing it wasn't a higher level of dressage since I don't ride dressage - I ride hunt seat and western!)

A bunch of folks who'd watched me sculpting or talked to me in my booth, as well as some vendors I'd gotten friendly with, came out to watch me ride. They asked if I was going to buy a Friesian after riding this one, and I said no. I have a wonderful Quarter Horse (Jack) who rides just beautifully and still has things to teach me, and he's PAID for, and he doesn't have all the "high maintenance" of a Friesian's long mane and feathers. He's my "forever" horse - I expect us to grow old together. But I sure did enjoy riding this Friesian! What a blast!

On the writing front, I'm still working with the book designer to get the layout done and proofread. It's a meticulous, painstaking process I had no idea would take so long. I have people champing at the bit to get my book now, and I still can't tell them when it will be published for certain! But it will be as perfect as possible when it is published!

While at the Friesian show, I started a sculpture of a small horse to be about the size of "Maestoso" (Shown in a marbled patina - also available in black). I thought the new piece would make a nice "pair" with Maestoso. I had it posed with its head turned the opposite way, reaching as if it needed to scratch its shoulder. Well, the sculpture started to bore me, because I'd started with no real plan, just grabbed some pics in a hurry, whipped together an armature, just to have something to work on at the show. That's not a good way to start a sculpture! Then suddenly I thought, "He's not scratching his shoulder - he's got an itchy wingpit!" So the piece developed wings! Well, wires where wings will go, anyway! As soon as I started putting the wires in place (after cutting out a big chunk of a well-developed body so I could get to the main armature wires), I found myself dancing and singing "You can do magic, bump-ba-dum" while putting the wires in place! And that isn't even a favorite song! And then I laughed out loud, amused that I was singing a song about magic while creating a Pegasus!

I planned a Pegasus years ago and got permission to take photos and measurements of a magnificent Andalusian stallion, Alborozo, who lives on the http://www.kilimanjaroranch.com/ in Malibu (I sure hope they came through the fires okay!). When I went out to measure him, they were having fires in the Simi Valley, just across the mountain from the farm. The pictures were made with the stallion's smoke-gray mane billowing in the gray, smoky air, with white ash falling on his white coat and all over us, too. I had a different Pegasus pose planned but this one appeals to me, and why not make more than one? :D So the new piece will be called "Feathers Itch" or "Itchy Feathers" - I'm not sure which.

A fun tie-in to my writing is the fact that in the second book of the series, my young mages are given winged horses, and the older brother's horse is named "Feather." I wasn't even thinking about "Star Sons" when I came up with this Pegasus idea, but it all ties in nicely!

The really cool thing was that when I stood back and looked at what I'd created after attaching the wires for the wings, I saw that there are heart-shaped formed by the turn of the horse's head and one wing top; by the two wing-tops considered together from the front, and again from the back; and by the swishing tail and the left wing-top! It's a very very cool thing to discover something nifty like that in a piece that just "happens"!

Anyway, as usual, my art and writing are closely tied together! I'll post some pics of Feather as he progresses. I'll be working on him at Equine Affaire next week.

Writing Stuff and Art Stuff

I've been too busy to update my blog for ages! Sorry about that!

Writing stuff: The book designer sent me his work on my original novel, "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" to proofread. It's appalling how many mistakes I've found, nearly all of them glitches caused by Word being Word (not the book designer's fault). Argh. Paragraphs jumping up into the paragraph above, blank lines showing up just randomly (fortunately without deleting any text!) and so on, things that confuse the book designer so the section breaks wind up in the wrong places, etc. So I'm having to proof it very carefully to make sure everything's as close to perfect as I can get it!

Writing tip of the day #1: If you write in Microsoft Word, save your file frequently, but when you get to about ten saves, rename the file. Apparently, the more you save the file to the same name, the glitchier it gets. Kudos to my daughter for sharing this hint with me!

I've been busy writing a new Harry Potter chaptered fanfic that I promised my readers. It was unbelievably hard to get back into Harry's world after developing my own magical world, but once I got into it, it was just as much fun as ever to write. I'll include ordering information for "Star Sons" with each chapter as I upload it, so those who already like my writing will know how to order my original novel. It will be a handy marketing tool!

Writing tip of the day #2: Create a file for each of these categories:

*Characters (including their names, the meaning of their names if significant, what they look like, what's "important" about them, their relationship to other characters, their abilities, quirks, etc.)
*Settings (including whatever's important about these settings, locations, etc.)
*Incantations/Spells/Science of your world (if applicable)
*Anything else that seems important to you.

Also, start a "chapter outline" file, with an outline or paragraph or list of what happens in that chapter, who's involved, clues or "red herrings" you've planted, resolutions to clues from previous chapters, etc.

Keep these files updated every day, if you can! When you can't remember when little Sally actually broke her arm, you can look it up easily.

On to art news: The Friesian trophy ("Elegance") I've been working on is being cast in bronze as I write this! We'll be going to Oregon to supervise the finish work in a couple of weeks. "Finish work" involves how the parts of the carriage are put together, and the creation and attaching of all the little pieces that have to be made by hand for each sculpture, such as the bits, the driving lines, the terrets on the harness, the tugs, etc. I'm having three cast now, and the foundry workers will take notes and LOTS of pictures as we go along. Then when I order more in the future, they'll know how to finish them without me there. You can see that sculpture here: http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/elegance.html It will be awarded at the Friesian Extravaganza at the Clark County Fairgrounds, Springfield OH, the last Saturday in October. I will also have my booth there in the vendor area - come by and say "Howdy!"

Someone just ordered a perpetual trophy for the US Dressage Federation using my sculpture "Frolic" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/frolic.html). It will be awarded at the USDF Convention at the end of November. Detail and finishing work on both of these trophies has kept me very busy!

Once both of these pieces are awarded, they will go back to the Kentucky Horse Park to live in their respective organizations' headquarters, "Elegance" at the Friesian Horse Asso. of North America (FHANA) headquarters, "Frolic" at the USDF headquarters. With "Harmony" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/harmony.html) already in the USDF Hall of Fame, that makes THREE pieces I have at the Kentucky Horse Park! "Harmony" is just on loan (unless someone buys it and donates it to USDF), but "Elegance" and "Frolic" will be there forever! COOL!

I've nearly finished the sculpture of my husband that goes with "Just Trying to Help" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/trying.html, but the trophy work and proofreading "Star Sons" has put that sculpture on the back burner for the time being. I only have to finish his right hand and his paintbrush, then clean him up, and he'll be ready to send! But the delay isn't really a bad thing. I was afraid I'd have to send it with dry ice and overnight express, which costs a fortune, due to the heat wave in both Ohio and Oregon, but it's much cooler in both states now, so shipping can be done the normal way. Yay!

That's enough blogging for now! I hope some of my rambling has been helpful to you!