The Girdle of Melian

From The Face of A Lion, copyright 2008 by Deniz Bevan: "Austin stood with Theseus in the doorway, hidden from the men in the room by slaves passing to and fro with food-laden trays and jugs of wine. He looked around at the portly men, slouching on divans set against the walls, some actually lying down, pulling small tables toward them and picking at the sweetmeats, fruits and pastries layered in pyramids on silver platters. Their golden jewellery and brightly coloured togas glittered in the lights from oil lamps set into niches in the walls. The pink and orange rays of the setting sun came through the arched entrance at the back of the room and lent a piercing shimmer to the purple, red and blue stripes of the men’s togas. Each noble had attempted to outdo the others, it seemed, and worn as bright a colour as he could, with no grey or brown to dim the glow. All except Theseus’ father, he noticed, who was wearing his everyday toga, plain white with only his senatorial purple strip

I've got leave coming up! And Jen's marathon, will, I hope, keep me very very busy and sleep deprived, as I'll be getting up at 5.30 (!) every day to do some writing. As Basil Fawlty says, "I've been up since 5.30, you know!" I'll post a snip soon to tide y'all over :-)

Carol Spradling is about to have her first novel, COST OF FREEDOM, released through The Wild Rose Press. Release Date: Digital May 30, print Nov. 28 ISBN #: 1-60154-241-0 And Jen 's having a contest to celebrate!

Jen has suggested another writing marathon , for all of us who have been slacking off recently and not meeting our goals. Well, she may have just been talking to me, for all the guilt I felt when I saw her message! Herewith, please find my goals for this week and for next week, when the marathon officially starts. Vacation coming up soon (Hi Jenny ! We could do a joint blog post from your place!) so I'd like to get as much done before that as I can. 1. Read the whole novel 2. Fill in the few scenes that *still* haven't been written 3. Start researching agents, how to write queries, etc

Tagged by Nina ! 1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. 2. Each player answers the questions about themselves. 3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog. 4. The player lets the person who tagged them know when they’ve posted their answer. What were you doing ten years ago? That would be 1998 but I can’t remember too specifically, so the things I list cover 1997 to 1999: graduated from CEGEP; started my BA at McGill University; saw Coldplay, Morrissey, Radiohead, Supergrass, Charlatans, Jean Leloup, etc. live; visited London, Paris, Antibes, Cannes, Nice, various towns in Corsica, Istanbul, Izmir and Kusadasi; almost bought a Dali statue (see here ), quit working at Dairy Queen and started working at Second Cup; finished reading all 12 of the History of Middle-Earth books; knit about 20 scarves; started learn

Round Three of the 70 Day Writing Challenge is over this weekend. As usual, I didn't complete *all* of my goals, but still got a fair bit done. I'm on the third or fourth draft of The Face of A Lion , with about five scenes left to write and one or two major overhauls to do of the entire novel. Once it's ready to show friends and family, then I'll know it's ready for querying! Work may be on the back burner for a little while, however, since there are a few family events coming up - and a two week vacation! Ask me where - I have no idea yet... Any suggestions? Meanwhile, Claire has some big news over on her blog :-)

Concert mardi 13 mai a l'Etage - paris 11eme Bonjour à tous!! Rappel : nous jouons Mardi 13 Mai à 20h30 a l'Etage - 77 rue du Faubourg du Temple (Paris 11eme - metro Goncourt/Belleville/République) Pour une fois c'est à une heure décente... Entrée directement sur place à 5 € (pas de prévente), et possibilité de se vautrer dans de gros canapés ou de manger sur fond de musique douce et berçante... On compte vraiment sur votre présence parce que si la salle est remplie on nous proposera d'y rejouer, et puis aussi parce qu'on a des nouveaux morceaux - et donc c'est la bonne occasion pour les tester. Flyer en pj et toujours des videos et morceaux en ecoute sur: www.myspace.com/yalloh2 Bises! Alexandre

(this was also originally a post on the Compuserve Forum) I did a spelling and grammar check up to Chapter 9 of The Face of A Lion , and then got bored by Word’s ridiculousness. Here’s what I came up with: "Perhaps in that one place, it need not come to pass. The right way might be chosen , the seed planted in good soil. But it would require help, a trip forward, another trip backward. Yet it could be done ... He would have to start at the neap of the tide." See, here it’s obvious why I’ve chosen the passive – because I don’t want to name names... Especially in the second example: if I say "he could do it", it sounds stupid and implies that Kedi is acting on his own, which is certainly not the case. "She suggested he walk to the ice cream parlour at the end of the main road, pointing with her shears, and told him that the original neighbourhood in her childhood had been made up of roughly fifty houses." Aye well, this one is kind of a sticking point. Any

This is part of a reply I wrote to a new member of the Compuserve Books and Writers Community . I was a Forum newbie only two years ago - time flies when you're having fun :-) I've been writing since I was in the first grade. My first stories were about a kid named Aldo and another kid who was friends with a cow who went to the moon. Later on, I wrote short stories that had stickers in place of some strategic words, and a story about a birth in the family, told from the point of view of the kettle on the stove. I tried writing my first novel when I was in the fourth grade, about a new girl at school. My sister still remembers it and asks whether I've kept it. Kind of like J.R.R. Tolkien's memory of reading a story to one's parents and having them criticise a miniscule aspect of it (his mother had told him he couldn't say "green great dragon" but had to say "great green dragon"), my mother, when she read my story, asked why I was using the acr