Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

sorry! September 10, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:20 am
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I just received my first ‘low’ review of Grace Awakening: a 3/5.

I feel so badly!

Not for my ego, because I have no argument with any of the points raised.  No.  I feel badly because this poor reader felt at the end of Book One: Awakening Dreams that she was left hanging in the air.  She was irritated.

Oh dear.  When I read her review, I recognised the feeling only too well. After all, I wrote about it here in the blog just yesterday.

She felt I’d given her The Empire Strikes Back.

Darn.

I wrote Grace Awakening as a single story in one six month period.  When we decided that it would be better as two books, because of the two settings and character groups, the one thing I kept repeating to my editor was, “I don’t want anyone to have that Empire Strikes Back feeling!”  We edited and added to fine tune the story arc with that specific goal in mind.

I feel terrible.  I know I’m getting lots of great reviews from readers who are satisfied with the ending.  They know there is more to come and some mysteries need to remain to connect the series.  I still feel badly to have frustrated someone.  I really do know how that feels.  I hate it!

So if you’re a reader who felt there wasn’t enough resolution for you at the end of Grace Awakening Dreams, I promise you’ll be happier at the end of Grace Awakening Power.  Grace’s loose ends are all tied up there.  We’re going somewhere else for books three and four,so I am not going to torture you for years as you wait for books to come out. ;-P

In the meantime, please accept my apology about your frustration.

George Lucas never gave me an apology, and I’m still ticked off about it.

.

PS.

When Lintusen releases the paper version in a few months, we’re going to include both books one and two in an omni-bus.  I am wondering what people think about having both e-books combined as one e-book as well, perhaps offered for 50c less than buying them separately?  That means you’d be able to buy the first for 99c, as you can now.  The second book is being released at $2.99, so both are $3.98. The omnibus of both books would be something like $3.49.  It’d be kind of a 50c reward for people who already know they are going to want both because they’ve heard great things.  What do you think?    If you have an opinion about this idea, leave me a comment!

 

Double Wow! September 7, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:35 am
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I have been following Grace’s movements on Kindle, since they have each book’s ‘Bestseller Stat” right on the listing. (FYI, she’s in the top 9% of e-book sales today).   I have been very curious to know about iTunes listings, because it seemed to me that most of the people I was hearing from had bought their copy on iTunes.

Just this week I discovered the iTunes Book Charts. Grace Awakening has a profile there. I learned that it was doing quite well, so well in fact, that it had been making regular appearances on the list of  Top 100 Fantasy eBooks in Canada!  Needless to say, I was excited. (Picture Shawn squealing and leaping about).

Last night I went through every chart from the day Grace debuted at 34th place (her best stat).  I was absolutely astounded to discover that she spent 14 days straight in the Top 100 during the first two weeks of August!

Holy Cow!!

After that, she’s popped on and off the list, so she’s sitting around the 100 line.  She’s been on again the last couple of days. I am so excited that my book baby is off in the world making her own friends. I can’t believe that she’s holding her own statistically with authors like J R R Tolkein, Terry Goodkind, and David Edding! I’ve read those guys!

I read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy as a kid. I am one of those Star Trek and Star Wars nerds. It’s so cool that Grace has a place among ‘my people.’ 😀


I hope she has the staying power to keep there, and that more people find her and fall in love with her and her friends.  I’m really looking forward to the release of Grace Awakening Power, and seeing what she does when she’s not just dreaming, but has some potency behind her!  Will she take off into the stratosphere?

Thanks to you for reading. Grace and I appreciate you entering our world.

 

without music September 6, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:04 pm
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“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

-Friedrich Nietzsch

Do I need to say anything else about this?  Everyone living inside the pages of Grace Awakening knows all about this, except Ares perhaps, but even he thinks it’s important enough to try to destroy.

 

Wow September 4, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:00 am
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Wow. I am a little stunned here today. I just discovered a website that tracks the iBook chart data and posts Top 100 for various genres. To my joy and astonishment, apparently Grace Awakening “has appeared 55 times” in the Top 100 Fantasy or SciFi/Fantasy in Canada this summer. It reached a high of #34 the week after release.

Wow. Pretty good for a brand new book from a brand new author! I’m looking forward to charting Grace’s adventures as word spreads.

Pretty cool what you can find on the internet.

Oh, yesterday was also a big day because I got a new fan on my Facebook Author Page: a high school student from New York who writes very enthusiastically of the book. I’m thrilled 😀 Word is spreading!  I’m so happy that Grace is off finding new friends in faraway places!

How about you?  Are you a new friend of Grace?  Where do you live?

 

purdah September 1, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:12 am
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In Grace Awakening Myth, Bright comments that purdah is a “curse word.”  Just for clarity, I thought I should include a thorough definition of what it actually is.  In short, it means separation.  It is the act of separating female family members from public. There are variations of practice depending on location and faith.  Knowing Bright, you will be able to understand why she thinks it’s a curse word.

In 1925 Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert to Islam and translator of the Quran, gave a lecture in Madras entitled “The Relation of the Sexes”[7] which condemned purdah in the Indian subcontinent, and also criticized the practice of face veiling among Muslim women.

If you read the article, you will have a clear understanding of the real definition, and have a historical context for a practice that exists in some places even today.

 

Concordia August 29, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:44 am
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In Greek mythology, the goddess in charge of unity and agreement is Harmonia.  In the Roman pantheon, it’s Concordia.  Concordia has some responsibilities that Harmonia doesn’t have.  Concordia is responsible for marital harmony and connection, as well as the unity of mankind.  In Grace Awakening, Concordia was given the surname Iugo.  Iugo is Latin and reflects this role.  According to the Google translator  iugo encompasses the following verbs:

join, joint, join together, bind together, band, link, connect, inosculate, interlace, interlock, bridge, couple, rally, compound, amalgamate, clasp, leash, pair, marry, yoke, wed, complect, harness, aggregate, conjoin, pan, agglutinate, commingle, lark, conflate, compact, unite, fun, mate

You get the idea.  Concordia’s job here is to join couples.  To ensure strong bonds of communication, she has a ceremonial rite of bonding.  Ben takes advantage of this opportunity to strengthen his ties to Grace.  He is trying to tie them together in a way that ensures no one can pull them apart.

What do you think about this?  If you had an opportunity to layer the bonds between you  and your beloved so that your communication was clear and no one could separate you, would you take advantage of it?  Or do you prefer a little mystery in your relationship?  Do you want to maintain more privacy than Grace is able to have after she’s bonded?

 

keep walking August 13, 2011

Filed under: Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:31 pm
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If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. ~Buddhist Saying

It may take a while, but step by step, you get closer to your goal.  Don’t give up.  Don’t be discouraged.  Just keep moving forward.

While I was going to university, I got married, had babies, and moved a dozen times.  These were not activities that promoted speedy academic progress!  It took me 8 years to get my first degree, step by step, course by course.   Eventually the end arrives, if you keep moving toward your goal.

When I was writing Grace Awakening, I wrote 5 pages a day, 25 pages a week, for 6 months.  23 weeks later, there was a novel on my computer.   Some people write 8 hours a day and do 20 or 30 pages a day.  They speed through a novel in a month.  My pace may seem like I’m a tortoise in comparison, but I got there.  If I had gotten down on myself for not being a speedy hare, I might not have finished at all.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

Onward!

 

Herb the salesman August 11, 2011

Filed under: anecdotes,Grace Awakening — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:06 am
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Meet Herb.

Herb is almost 97 (I know, he doesn’t look  it, does he?)

Herb is fascinated with my book and the whole concept of electronic publishing.  He spent his whole life as a salesman, and he has a million questions about the book and my marketing strategies. He is confused but intrigued by all the modern internet sales and strategies. He wants to know, “what are you doing about this? Are you doing this?” etc.  He’s very enthused about the whole thing. If he was 20 years younger I could have hired him to be promotional coordinator, and I would be on the New York Times best seller list in a matter of months.

Every time I see him, he asks for more business cards.  Every person he meets, he hands over a card and tells him to look up this book.  Young people around here say, “Oh!  Mrs. Bird, the teacher!  I know her!” and he’s thrilled.  Older people he convinces that they need to buy this book for their kids and grandkids.

Because he is mostly blind, I made him an audio copy of the early draft of Grace Awakening a couple years ago.  I think this sold him on the whole thing.  He is certain everyone will love the story, because he did (and he’s 80 years beyond my target audience).

Every author should have such a devoted marketer.

Thanks Dad!

 

Where did it all begin? August 10, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Literature,Poetry,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:02 am
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I was asked this question yesterday, and I figured you might be interested in the answer.

Short answer: it began with a poem.

Long answer: it’s been a long journey, but it began with a boy, a poem, and some books.

When I was ten, I developed a crush of epic proportions. Since I was an avid reader, I was also a writer. I’d been making up stories and writing poetry since I was in grade three. The unexpected, overwhelming emotions involved in this crush, led to outpourings of poetry. The theme was common: where had this emotion come from? Surely something this intense couldn’t just have happened? Surely such emotion must have been in the universe forever?  The year I was twelve, I wrote this poem, which summarizes this sensation:

When I look at you
I see sunshine in darkness
Passion through naïveté

I think that we were lovers once
In another life
You and I belonged
And that is why we were drawn

That is why I love you so much
And why your name
Brings happiness through sorrow

A wisp of a smile
When day dies
I remember you and I smile

You are my day and my night
Your face is a memory
That time cannot erase,
And someday
In another life
We will be lovers
Once again

It’s the poem Grace’s hand writes in the library. She is shocked and dismayed by what it reveals to her.  I know it isn’t a great poem, and I would tighten it up if I was writing it now, but I wanted it to be here as an authentic voice, flaws and all.

That poem begged to be a novel. There was a need to explore that sense of infinity that comes with a profoundly intense relationship like a first love, and like a lasting love, as well.

I tried to write it a few times over the years, but it didn’t go anywhere. I could get a narrative, but there was no hook to hang the story on. It was boring. If it was boring for me, it’d be boring for readers. Still, that love story wanted out, and it waited.

Then one day, I was reading some questionaires I”d given my students. In answer to the question, “What is the best book you’ve ever read?” About a quarter of my class had answered, “Twilight.” I’d never heard of it. I mentioned this to one of my older students and she told me she had all three of the books that were out, and that I needed to read them. The next day I had Twilight. A few hours later I was dying for the next books. They were delivered, and I read between work, dance classes and way too many Rotary meetings. I adored the story and I adored the characters. I was making connections like crazy- the key to one’s enjoyment of a book- and I had an epiphany.

Myth could be the hook. I started writing the week after Thanksgiving 2008. The characters started introducing themselves. I tried to move them in one direction, they chose to go another. The book was done the week before April. And it was good.

It wasn’t perfect, of course. The first readers picked out weak scenes, slow spots, confusing things, etc, but they loved it. They wanted more.

And that’s where it all began…

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If you’re visiting from Poetry Potluck 48, please include the link to your poem in any comment you leave!  Thanks and thanks for coming by!

 

Quatrain August 4, 2011

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:49 pm
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Reality is a dream awoken
Truth is perception spoken
Wisdom is a lifetime’s token
Grace is long love unbroken