Author Archives: Tia Nevitt

I Heart My iPad

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OMG I love my iPad so much. I got the bottom-of-the-line version a couple of weeks ago, and it is just so fun. Why didn’t Microsoft ever try to make Windows a joy to use as Apple did for their products? I finally understand why Apple computer users have been so loyal over the years.

One of my favorite apps is Flipboard. It has made browsing blogs, Twitter and Facebook a breeze. I have been more prevalent on your blogs these days because of Flipboard. It presents the most recent blog (or twitter, or facebook) articles in a magazine-like format, and I just touch the articles that catch my eye. Google Reader no more!

I also experimented with some mind-mapping software, and none of them were free-form enough for my purposes. So I went to the computer and downloaded Freemind on my laptop, an open-source application, and even it wasn’t what I wanted. So I went back to my old Wiki, TiddlyWiki, and I guess I’ll stick with that for my storybuilding needs.

I also downloaded the Dragon Dictation app, where Nuance software gives you a very nice dictation app in the hopes of selling you the 100 dollar Dragon Naturally Speaking. I am VERY tempted …

Pages is promising but it doesn’t have track changes. A big drawback, but it WAS ten dollars as opposed to one hundred and twenty. I plan to use it to finish reading my long-suffering critique partner’s manuscript, and hopefully find a way to write notes at the same time.

My daughter and I are having fun with the Treasure Seeker puzzle games. We are on the first game. I can see buying up and playing the other games in the series.

The native apps are where the iPad shines. The email, calendar and contacts apps are very elegant and make even browsing email fun. The new iMessage app is fun, but not very useful because of a dearth of people I have to chat with. Same goes for FaceTime. (I know my sisters have iPhones, but none seem to be using these apps.) An annoyance was the newsstand, which you couldn’t even tuck away in a folder–except I found a semi-hack to do that, so now I don’t have to look at it. The Safari browser is a bit of a letdown because it doesn’t seem as easy as the version I have on my iPod Touch (??), and the resolution of the built-in camera is not quite up to the standards of the iPad’s own screen resolution.

But on the whole, I have few complaints, and lot of phrase.

So I’m finding that the IPad works well for some thing, but not very well for others. One thing it’s great for is social networking, but it’s not so great for writing blog posts. You can pull the keyboard apart so you can easily thumb-type while holding the ipad, but you can’t pull the keyboard apart at some nice midrange to allow you to more comfortably touch-type.

Will it help me be more productive? Absolutely! Will it help me goof off? Absolutely! Will I read books on it? Probably not. (Too heavy. My Nook is much better for book reading.) Should you get one? I don’t know. Steve Jobs has died and he was a big reason apple made such great products–he was a brilliant designer. I remember being wowed by the NeXt computer — which was also his brainchild — years and years ago. Do they have another designer as brilliant? I don’t know, but I suspect something will be missing from future Apple products–a part of his designer voice, for lack of a better word. Android tablets aren’t even in the same league. That’s why I waited until a bit of a windfall put an iPad in my price range.

(Actually, I think I did just give you a good reason to go out and buy one–it might be the last great Apple product.)

Bottom line–I love it. If you’re looking for a tablet, you might want to hold out for one of these rather than getting a cheaper Android tablet. The difference is worth it.

NaNoWriMo – Who’s With Me?

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(I started to write this as my usual 3-in-one Sunday afternoon post–in fact, I already wrote all three topics–but I decided that was stupid and I will post each topic separately.)

Yes, I am going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year! With caveats.

I’ve been told that a novella writer should be able to write a 15,000 word novella in a month, and so I am going to try. Yes, I know that the *official* NaNoWriMo goal is 50,000 words, but I’d have to neglect my family to be able to attain that goal, and I know you wouldn’t want me to do that.

I think 500 words a day is highly attainable. And the discipline of having to write every day will be good for me. I have a very full life (my cup truly runneth over) and I can’t complain at all except that at the end of the day, I am sometimes too wiped out too write. My blood pressure meds are partially to blame, so it’s kind of a vicious cycle. I have a cup of tea in the evening to counteract the sleepies, but I can’t drink too much because caffeine can adversely affect blood pressure.

I’m going to try to figure out some widget that will enable me to put my status up here on the sidebar somewhere. I’m sure one exists.

Not sure what can be done with it, but here’s my NaNoWriMo profile.

Who else is in? Maybe I’ll make a sidebar of NaNoWriMo buddies.

This Week in Research – Little People

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When I’m doing research, I often find myself researching the small details. Well, but bulk of my research for my Snow White retelling has been big details about small people: namely little people.

I have become a frequent visitor to LPA, or Little People of America. It’s a fabulous website, chock full of information and things I, being typically sized, would never have thought of.

Achondroplasia is the most common form of dwarfism, but there are many different causes of short stature. Most of the dwarfs in my story have this form of dwarfism. Two characters are merely short. In my story, a female with Achondroplasia is married to a typical man who is short. They have a six foot son. When one person with this condition has a child with someone that does not, the chance of a child with Achondroplasia is 50%.

People with this condition often develop lower back problems. There are certain adaptive products available to little people. These chairs not only have short legs, but they have short seat backs, high arm rests, and sometimes built-in footrests. I never would have guessed the high arm rests, but I learned that many people with Achondroplasia have upper arms and legs that are shorter than their lower arms and legs.

I also looked into mobility products, but since my story takes place in times past, I don’t need to read about things like pedal extenders and extra seat cushions in cars to accommodate driving–but I did anyway. A good many people with Achondroplasia also have to use walkers.

But really, the reason I wanted to write about little people has little to do with the Snow White story. When I came up with the Accidental Enchantments theme, I drew some sketches of some characters I had in mind for four stories. One was the prince in Snow White, who I have mostly kept intact with my original vision. However, I only had 1500 words written. I couldn’t make the story work until I came up with Gretchen, a young woman with Achondroplasia. Then, I was able to write the rough draft in six weeks.

And I wanted to write about such a person because they are rare enough to be memorable, yet so rare in fiction. When I have an interaction with a little person, I remember it for years and years. I realize that this is probably both a burden and a blessing to such people. But because of these people who remain fixed in my memory, I wanted to write this story. I’m glad Snow White gave me the impetus to do so, but i wanted them to be genuine characters, not caricatures. And I wanted them to be the main characters.

I just hope I don’t botch it.

This Week – Acacia Trilogy – Device Chat

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Hey! First “This Week” post in a while. And what is the occasion? A guest post scheduled for Friday!

Since I figured I better liven things up around here for my guest, I also have another Weekly Research post, which is where I write about the things I’ve researched lately. Always fun. That will post on Tuesday. Plus, I always have book reviews to write, so I’ll endeavor to write a review on a recent epic fantasy that takes place in a nonwestern culture. WooHoo!

~*~

In other news, David Anthony Durham‘s third Acacia book is out! It’s called Sacred Band, and of course I’ll be getting a copy. In hardcover. Despite the fact that I have several very satisfactory electronic reading devices. Why spend the money? Because I have the other two books in hardcover and it’ll look so nice to have all three. I’m a book snob that way; sue me.

~*~

Speaking of satisfactory reading devices, I bought an iPad. It was a rare splurge. I got the cheapest one, and it’s probably overpriced, and I’m just enriching a corporation that often behaves badly, but damn. You have to admit that Apple puts out a product that is terribly elegant and a joy to use.

It does mean that I probably won’t buy a Nook Touch any time soon. But I am still using my Nook–used it today, in fact–and so far, Barnes and Noble is still putting out updates for it. Which install quite effortlessly on my rooted Nook. Which, by the way, really didn’t bring me anything other than a certain cachet in having successfully hacked something. Which wasn’t really hacking because I followed a set of very specific instructions.

Anyway, I’m also thinking of hacking my old iPod Touch because Apple doesn’t put out updates for it anymore, and it has some damned annoyances. It is an orphan device. I’m feeling the pressure to buy a new one, rather than foisting this old, soon-to-be-hacked one off on my daughter. I wonder if, in two years, Apple won’t likewise orphan my iPad because they want me to upgrade to their new whiz-bank device of the year.

I’ll probably be really good at hacking these things by then.

Review: The Case of the Missing Servant

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The Case of the Missing Servant
by Tarquin Hall
Simon & Schuster

Cozy Contemporary Mystery

I did a Debut Showcase on this novel a while back and I always meant to go back and read it. Now, I finally have.

The Case of the Missing Servant is about Vish Puri, a Delhi detective. Unlike most detective stories that I’ve read, this novel is not about Vish’s origins as a detective. He is a well-established detective, highly competent, with contacts in every nook and cranny of Delhi life. He is portly and unassuming, and is happy to have people underestimate him–including his clients.

The cover above is wonderful. The picture of the traffic is not exaggerated–which will be a bit unbelievable to Western readers, who are accustomed to orderly traffic, with well-enforced traffic laws. One of the running gags in the story is Vish is trying to get his driver to abide by traffic laws–including following the speed limit laws–which is just a bit unreasonable to the driver, who lives on the verge of quitting over the matter.

I’m not as happy with this cover, for the UK. What were they thinking?

Anyway, the reader is immersed in the world of Delhi’s upper middle class, with its household servants, corrupt court systems, and gentlemen’s clubs. It’s fun. What it’s not is suspenseful. Don’t expect a nail-biter, here. The reader is presented with a small set of cases that Vish is involved in during the span of time it takes for him to solve the main murder mystery. This includes the investigation of a man for a potential marriage match, and the the investigation of Vish’s attempted murder (which he shrugs off) by his mother (who is considerably more upset by the matter). Oh, and the missing servant.

It is also fairly critical of some aspects of Indian life, especially it’s court system. Remember Bleak House? That novel was so bleak that I couldn’t get through it. As in Dickens’s England, cases take years to churn through the court system. People go broke while waiting for their cases to be solved, and they grow old and die to have the matter taken up by their children. Bleak? Yeah. Fortunately, Mr. Hall does not dwell on it overmuch, but I’m not sure if actual Indians will enjoy this novel.

I enjoyed this novel quite a bit, reading it from cover to cover in just a few days. The next Vish Puri book is out, The Case of the Man who Died Laughing. It’s on my buy list. If you like cozy mysteries, then this is one to check out.

Sample Sunday #1 – From The Sevenfold Spell

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I decided to take part in #samplesunday, a Twitter hashtag that links to one of your books or works-in-progress. The idea is to post your sample, and then read and retweet other people’s samples.

In this sample, Talia is starting to regret her promiscuous lifestyle, and to wish for something different.

~*~

My infrequent confessions went something like this:

“I have not been chaste, as a maiden ought,” I would say to the priest.

“With whom have you not been chaste?”

“A butcher. A baker. A candlestick maker.”

“And are you sorry for these sins?”

“No, I can’t say that I am.”

“Then until you are, your soul will bear its burden.”

The local bachelors talked about me, I know. They traded stories—but they always went happily to my bed. To the aisle? Never.

I spoke of it to Harla, sometimes. “I would make a good wife,” I said.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” she said.

“I’m ready to be faithful to a good man who would have me,” I said. “I would devote myself to him and his children.”

“You’re thinking of Willard.”

“Yes.”

“Did you love him, then?”

“I didn’t think of it as love. There wasn’t any time to think of anything but having him.”

“We all thought you went mad for him.”

“I did. I wanted his child.”

She looked at me in shock. “Out of wedlock?”

“I couldn’t have him, so I wanted a piece of him.”

“Then, you really did love him.”

I didn’t reply, but I did wonder about that. Why did I offer myself to him? Although to lie with him had been my own choice, it would have never been a choice I would have made had we been able to marry. I thought of the child I had wanted so badly, of little Aurora who was never conceived. She would be coming on her menses about now, had she been born. More often, I thought of Willard. Eventually, I realized that I had loved him, just like Harla said. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

And it was the only explanation that accounted for my odd taste in men. I was picky, in my own way. I looked for the men so often rejected by other women: the too thin, the too chubby, the too pocked, the too graying. But I also looked for shyness, for awkwardness, for the socially inept. Was I looking for another Willard? Perhaps. I never found one, but I did find some men who stayed with me for lengths of time that measures in months rather than weeks. One even stayed with me for over a year.

Only one was handsome.

~*~

I bet you think you know what is going to happen in the next scene. However, I think it will surprise you. It certainly surprised me.

The Week in Research

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Welcome to a new feature. I hope it interests you. It’s where I write about what I’ve researched, lately. I love research, and I’ve been meaning to start this feature for quite some time.

So I’m writing about some events that take place on a farm. Yeah, I know, The Sevenfold Spell also took place partially on a farm. But farm life was very common in the centuries before this one and the previous one, so I think I’m good.

Another important fact about the story: it takes place in an unnamed Germanic country.

Anyway, I had envisioned this scene that took place at the top of a grain silo. When did farmers start using grain silos, I wondered? I looked it up. Not until grain elevators were invented. In other words, fairly recently. Scratch that scene. It’s been totally rewritten.

See how research can drive the story?

Anyway, I’m happily writing away about life on this farm, and I have this scene envisioned that takes place in a kitchen. I start wondering if German kitchens had any significant differences from ours. And then I wondered if I was totally off in my vision of a typical family farmhouse in Germany during Little House-ish times, or maybe a hundred years before. What was the kitchen like? How were the bedrooms arranged? Did they even have bedrooms?

Good thing it occurred to me to wonder that. Behold, the German Farmhouse:

The Low German Farmhouse, to be exact. It is what’s called an einhaus, or a “one-house”, called so because the house and the barn are one. Note the windows in the back. That’s the part of the house that’s inhabited by humans. The rest of the house is occupied by cows, horses and other farm animals–except pigs. They get a separate building because they stink so bad.

That big yawning door opens to an aisle between animal stalls. Where the window starts, the aisle becomes the top of a T, where the kitchen is, toward the back-center of the house. Behind that is the living area. The farmhands and the female servants have quarters just before the T–between the animals and the people.

Fascinating.

It changes huge swaths of my story.

But it also adds a lot of atmosphere and interest, I think. I thought briefly about taking away the German-ness of the story, but I decided to carry on. Snow White is a German story, and I wanted to make it German from the start. I have given everyone German names, and right now, it would be very difficult for me to change them.

I love that picture. Pictures are so valuable to research. Descriptions are all and good, but a picture can tell you so much more. So I have scoured the Internets for pictures of the interior of that Low German Farmhouse, without success. I found German open air museums–the above picture is from one, in fact–but they only have pictures of the exterior.

I did find a floorplan:

Fortunately, the Wikipedia entry gives a translation. Mostly. Google Translate helped.

  • Einfahrstor – entrance gate.
  • Diele – threshing floor. The harvest was gathered there, and the wagon was stored here. A huge hall. Could be used for parties while the cows and horses looked on. The chickens were kept near the entrance gate.
  • Stall – stalls for horses and cows.
  • Futter – food. Maybe a pantry? I also saw another plan that identified this as the room for the farmhands.
  • Gesinde – servants.
  • Flett – large, open-air kitchen and dining area.
  • Feuerstelle – fireplace.
  • Seitentor – side gate.
  • Stube – room. The living area.
  • Tragender Holzstander – identifies the locations of the weight-bearing columns. Some farmhouses were 3 or 5 posts wide. This one is a two-post house.

And that is my fascinating research entry for the week. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you happen to have any pictures of the interior of a Low German Farmhouse–perhaps from a museum trip (I understand there’s one in Iowa, so this isn’t too much of a stretch)–I would love to see them.

Is Iowa too far away from Florida for a road trip? Hmm.

Review: Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

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Touch of Frost
by Jennifer Estep
Kensington Teen
YA – Fantasy

 

Wow–I’ve read every book Jennifer Estep has ever published. Well, I’m a little behind on the Elemental Assassin series, but I’m still reading them–I tend not to read books in series back t0 back. I admire how prolific she is. Things can only get better as her career progresses.

As evidenced by Touch of Frost. This is my favorite novel by her. Gone is the campiness from the Bigtime books. Gone is the grittiness from the Elemental Assassin. (Well, mostly). What isn’t gone is the voice, which has remained distinctive throughout all her novels.

Touch of Frost is about Gwen Frost, a girl of Gypsy lineage who is a new student at the Mythos Academy, a school for descendents of ancient world heroes like Vikings, Spartans, Sumerians, Samuari, Amazons–you name it. As a Gypsy, she doesn’t really fit in, or at least she doesn’t think she does.

It opens with this scene where we get to learn just what Gwen’s special gift is. She uses her gift in a novel way, charging rather steep fees to locate lost things. It leads her to popular mean girl Daphne Cruz, an unexpected friendship, and a supernatural murder mystery.

I’m a sucker for boarding school novels. Always have been. However, it does always seems rather heartless of the parents to shlep their kids off to boarding school, and you can’t imagine that they have good relationships with their parents. (Remember in The Sound of Music when the Baroness said, “Darling, haven’t you ever heard of a delightful little thing called boarding school?” Deliciously evil!) The cool thing about this novel is the school just happens to be located in Gwen’s home town. So, most afternoons, she sneaks off campus to visit her grandmother, her only living relative. What a great way to get around the limitations of the boarding school trope!

If I had encountered this novel when I was a teenager, I would have fallen in love with it. As an adult, I was enthralled enough to read this rather thick novel in a matter of days. The worldbuilding is fantastic. The character building is superb. Daphne, for instance, turns out to have a hidden vice–she is a closet computer geek. The leading guy–a Spartan bad boy named Logan Quinn–is rumored to sign the mattress of every girl he sleeps with. However, by the end of the book, we still aren’t sure if that rumor is true. I’m guessing (and hoping!) not.

As you might have guessed, this is a novel for older teens. The age range of the school is from sixteen to twenty-one, and it seems more like a college campus than a high school–with minimal supervision and lots of hanky-panky going on, strictly off the page. However, for the purposes of the story, the older students are hardly visible.

And as usual, Ms. Estep includes Easter Eggs of her earlier stories–both Bigtime and Elemental Assassin. Keep a lookout for them!

Obviously, I enjoyed this novel a great deal. I look forward to seeing where Ms. Estep takes this story in the next book in the series, Kiss of Frost.

EPIC Award Finalist!

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I am thrilled to announce that The Sevenfold Spell finaled in The Epic eBook Awards!It finaled in the Fantasy category.

This is the first time my writing finaled for any contest, so I am very excited. And now I have to seriously consider going to the annual EPIC convention, which–conveniently enough–takes place on a cruise sailing out of my home town. Convenient, but still expensive.

So wow–lots to think about. But still exciting!

Lots of Reading – Upcoming Reviews – Musings

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I’ve been reading a lot of books, and I hope to get some reviews written in the next few weeks. Here are the books I’ve completed lately:

Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

The Wet Nurse’s Tale by Erica Eisdorfer

Eon by Alison Goodman

Plus I have Spellwright by Blake Charlton on my iPod/Kindle app (sorry Katie–I couldn’t resist!) and I was just sent a copy of Prospero Regained by L. Jagi Lamplighter (thanks, Tor), which just shot up to the very top of my reading list. It’s the third book in the series, yanno. I’m hoping it’s also the conclusion, but I think I’d tolerate a book 4, if this one proves to be as good as the other ones.

~*~

So why am I reading books on my iPod/Kindle when I have a Nook? Because I FINALLY, after being an Amazon Associate since 2007, made enough money to earn a gift certificate. I intended to buy Eon (because the publisher sent me Eona), but I didn’t have the gift card set up properly and Amazon charged my credit card. After turning off the default purchase option, I properly credited my gift card and used it to buy Spellwright (because Tor sent me the sequel–thanks again, Tor). And I used the spare change that was left to buy The Sevenfold Spell, because I thought I’d be able to use the Kindle Notes to make publicly visible author notes, but apparently it doesn’t work like I thought it did and oh, well, I guess I’ll get 15% of it back as royalties. Anyone know how to make Kindle notes publicly available?

Have I ever bought a NookBook for my Nook? No. I always buy DRM free if I can, direct from the publisher. Not always an option, but I do try. Besides, B&N always seems to sell at the cover price, with only certain books discounted. Love my Nook, hate the Nook store.

~*~

I’ve taken to drinking tea in the evening because my high blood pressure meds puts me out like a light and it really cramps my style as an author. High blood pressure sucks. Meds suck. Better than dying I guess, but in the meantime, I hate being a zombie by 9. So I just had a most delightful cup of Irish Afternoon Tea by Bewley’s Tea of Ireland. And guess what! I’m awake enough to write a blog post.

~*~

Even though I’m not really working on my novel, somehow words keep finding their way into the manuscript and now I’m flirting with 40,000 words. This novel (the time travel historical) is the first one I’ve written that didn’t hit a brick wall at 20,000 words. Maybe because I’m not really trying? I’m also over halfway through with my edits for the Snow White story. So I guess I’ve been pretty productive with all this time that I have not been … er … blogging (wince).

And now, I sign off to not write, not edit, not blog … no, to watch, with my husband, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise , of which I’ve gotten hopelessly addicted.