The debut of the book trailer for Glancing Through the Glimmer has me positively airborne! Starting with the few rough ideas I offered, my ingenious web designer, Rick Shagoury, has brought the story to life in a way I never imagined possible. Treat yourself to a peek!
Thanks, Rick!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Balm of Fantasy
Aren’t there enough troubling issues to write about for teenage readers without making stuff up?Sure. That’s one reason why I write fantasy. Not only did I used to be a teenager, I also had two in the house for thirteen years or so. Their experiences gave me some knife-edged refreshers on what it’s like to be a teen. As if I could forget.
I recall my own teenage years well because I disliked them so much. Many teens do, for reasons ranging from embarrassing skin to curfews and cliques, STDs and mental health, body image, peer pressure, bullying, depression, drug abuse, and worse. Being a teenager is, and always has been, hard work.
Some teens find comfort reading about characters plagued by problems akin to theirs. Others prefer to bury themselves in rousing adventures that help relieve stress for a while. Those looming final exams don’t seem so desperate when vampires, werewolves, dragons, and aliens threaten the world.
During my teens, I often sought refuge in tales like Treasure Island, Great Expectations, the Hardy Boys mysteries, Peter Pan, and all sorts of fairy tales. Even better, I started creating my own escapes. I love to write and have three adventures coming soon from MuseItUp: the "Band of Roses" stories, alternate histories set in an Ireland that might have been. Glancing Through the Glimmer is the "prequel" to that trilogy.Glimmer’s hero and heroine, Liam Boru and Janet Gleason, struggle to deal with their own teenage issues. Their problems fall by the wayside when the King of the Fairies decides he’d like to dance with Janet—for the next few centuries. Danger and magic shadow her and hinder her budding romance with Liam. What would you do if you were Janet? Or if you were Liam, could you fight fairy enchantment to save her? Can Janet save Liam when the Fairy King turns on him? (I sure hope so. I need them both for the sequel.)
Whether readers identify with a character, or whether they simply enjoy going along for the ride, fantasy offers a respite from the world’s afflictions, and not just for teens. I love all genres of YA—but I still like the fantasy best.
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(Photo of Teen Reading Courtesy of Photobucket)
Friday, January 6, 2012
Rattling the Imagination
During my last visit to Dublin, I bought so many books I had to mail them home. That wasn’t bad enough, but I wasn’t sure if I already owned some of the titles. I thought I should make a list of what I already have and bring it with me next time. And so, a major undertaking looms before me: cataloging all my books.Fiction and poetry, legends and history, Books for Dummies, where to begin? Submarines and helicopters vie for space with portal tombs and ancient Celts, cookbooks crowd the writing how-to’s, mysteries share space with travel guides, Native Americans with Banshees.
I think I’ll take time out to tell you about one of my recent Dublin acquisitions, An Old Woman’s Reflections, an account of the life of Blasket Island storyteller Peig Sayers (1873-1958), the "Queen of the Gaelic Storytellers." I like to think I’m a pretty good storyteller, but this lady leaves me in the dust. Her son documented these recollections of her life and times on the now uninhabited Great Blasket Island in County Kerry. Reading the turns of phrases translated from Gaelic to English is wonderful exercise for anyone’s imagination.
Peig talked a lot about ears. She would say "I was old-wise enough to give a listening ear to the tailor." Or if she thought she had misheard a phrase, "I don’t know did my ears take it with them correctly."
She didn’t neglect the eyes, mouths, or hands, either. "You wouldn’t lay an eye on anyone who had his own natural color," she said of a group of frightened people. "Take the string off your mouth and let’s have them," the command to a reticent speaker. Her account of the man who gave her and her friend directions on the mainland: "While you’d be clapping your two hands together, he had swept us on the road north."
The language kept me shaking my head in delight. A stingy man "hadn’t the heart of a mouse." And one of my favorites, "You’d think nobody ever died, there were so many people there."
Peig’s book is all too short, probably why I opted to read it first. Yet I was reminded that good things come in small packages—and they come in big ones too. Right now I’m plowing my way through a mighty one, The Rattle Bag, a wonderful collection of poems from all over the world, first published in 1982 and put together by poets Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.
Poetry baffles me. I read it to find new ways of describing things, but I don’t understand a lot of it. This anthology, however, offers plenty to entertain, from poets I’ve never read before (Norman MacCaig - Aunt Julia) to beloved poems I recall well (Birches by Robert Frost).
Despite my good intentions, I doubt I’ll ever succeed in finishing (or even starting) my inventory of books. I stop too much to read the darn things.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
A Primer of Irish Slang
According to Dictionary.com, slang is "the jargon of a particular class, profession, etc." Several dictionaries suggest that the word "slang" originated from the Norwegian phrase "slengja kjeften" (literally, to sling the jaw). Whether it did or not, "sling the jaw" is a great phrase—and no one "slings the jaw" better than the Irish.In my quest to make the characters in my stories sound more Irish, I tried writing dialogue by chopping words and adding apostrophes. That did little to get the wonderfully lilting accent I heard in my head onto a page so a reader could hear it the same way I did. What could I do?
My first trip to Ireland helped solve the dilemma. The tour guide handed out a list of Irish-English vs. American-English words to help us Yanks fit in with the locals (right.)
We learned that in Ireland a cookie is a biscuit. French fries are chips, and potato chips are crisps. Very nice, but irrelevant to my story. And then I found Slanguage.
I enjoyed reading the fanciful phrases in this wonderful book by Bernard Share. Drisheens, shinogues, and sheilamaids filled the pages, but such words weren’t useful if I’d need a glossary at the end of my book. Thankfully I found a treasure trove of terms that wouldn’t flummox a reader at all. The context in which I used them would easily define them, and a few key phrases would help round out my characters. With more than enough ammunition for several books, I got to work.
Revising my stories caused no botheration at all. In fact, it was easy cakes. The boat that had simply sunk was now gone for its tea. The fella merely in love developed a soft eye for his lady. And that idiot who’s always foostering about? What an eejit!
Should I chance my arm and bare a few of the naughtier terms? Come here and I’ll tell yez. A state of chastitution is sure to leave a fella’s privities banjaxed. To remedy the situation, he might give his girl a ride on his crossbar. But they should invite Rubber Johnny along or she’ll be up the flue.
At first I felt pig-ignorant exploring such a power of words, but now I think I can pass myself. Still, I’m only trotting after the true jaw-slingers. Mr. Share did me an obligement by writing his book, and I found several others packed with phrases that not only twisted hay with my imagination, they left me gobsmacked.
A Glossary of Irish Slang by Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, Dictionary of Cork Slang by Seán Beecher, and A Dictionary of Hiberno-English by Terence Patrick Dolan are only a few of the wonderful books out there. Then there are the web sites. Googling "Irish Slang" produces some entertaining results.
One of my favorite slang-related sites is http://www.overheardindublin.com/, a fabulous compilation of e-mails sent in by ordinary folks from their earwigging of real conversations in Dublin. The site has generated three (so far) delightful paperbacks: Overheard in Dublin, Overheard in Dublin Again, and More Overheard in Dublin. These books by siblings Gerard Kelly and Sinéad Kelly offer hilarious snippets of Irish life that will delight every dog and devil.
There. All done and dusted.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Enya the Bride
When the ancestors of the modern Irish arrived in Ireland 1700 years before Christ, they defeated the Tuatha de Danann, the magical Tribe of the Goddess Danu. The leader of the Dananns, a womanizing rascal named Finvarra, negotiated a truce with the Irish that gave them half of Ireland—the bottom half. And so, the Dananns became known as the Daoine Sídhe (Deena Shee), the People of the Mounds.Finvarra supposedly lives in a palace beneath a hill in Galway. During a recent trip to the Emerald Isle, I stopped by this hill, called Knock Ma (See my post, Knock Moo). I wanted to see Finvarra's home, as he costars in Glancing Through the Glimmer, my young adult adventure coming soon from MuseItUp Publishing. I didn't meet him that day, but the local postman assured me that he and his fairy troop were there.
Here is a wonderful old Irish tale starring Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies.
ENYA the BRIDE
Retold by Pat McDermott
As everyone knows, the beauty of mortal women attracts the fairies. Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies, enlisted his minions to find and abduct the prettiest ladies in Ireland. The fairies bewitched the loveliest women and brought them to Finvarra’s crystal palace beneath Knock Ma in Galway. The women heard only fairy music, which lulled them into a trance. They remained enchanted, forgetting about mortal life and living as if in a dream.
Long ago, in that part of the country, a great lord had a comely wife called Enya. He held feasts in her honor and filled his castle from dawn till dusk with music. Lords and ladies danced with great pleasure in Enya’s honor.
At the merriest part of the feast one evening, Enya entered the dance. She wore silver gossamer bound with jewels that outshone the stars in heaven. Suddenly, she released the hand of her partner and fell to the floor in a swoon.
The servants carried her to her chamber, where she lay insensible all night. At dawn, she awoke and told them she’d spent the night in a beautiful palace. "Oh, how I long to go back to sleep and return there in my dreams!"
The servants watched her all day, and she fared well enough, but when evening fell, they heard music at her window. She fell again into a trance from which no one could rouse her.
The young lord set Enya’s old nurse to sit with her, but the silence enticed the woman to sleep until dawn. When she looked at the bed, she saw to her horror that Enya had vanished.
The household searched the castle and gardens but found no trace of Enya. The young lord sent riders into the wind, but no one had seen her. He saddled his chestnut steed and galloped away to Knock Ma to speak to Finvarra, the King of the Fairies, for he and Finvarra were friends. Many a keg of good wine did the young lord leave outside his castle to quench the thirst of the fairies. Finvarra would surely have tidings of Enya.
But little did the young lord know that Finvarra himself was the traitor.
When the young lord stopped by the fairy rath, he heard voices in the air: "Finvarra is happy now, for in his palace he has the bride who will never more see her husband’s face."
"Aye," spoke another. "Finvarra is more powerful than any mortal man, though if the husband dug down through the hill, he would find his bride."
The young lord swore that devil nor fairy nor even Finvarra himself would stand between him and his bride. He sent word to every able-bodied man in the county to come with their spades and pickaxes, and they dug to find the fairy palace.
They made a deep trench, and at sunset they quit for the night. But the very next morning they found that the clay was back in the trench, as if the hill had never been dug.
The brave young lord asked the men to continue their digging, and they dug the trench again. For three days they dug with the same result: the clay was put back each night, and they were no nearer to Finvarra’s palace.
The young lord prepared to die of grief, then he heard a whisper in the air: "Sprinkle the soil you have dug with salt, and the salt will preserve your work."
He scoured the countryside for salt. That night, his men salted the soil they had dug that day. At dawn, they awakened to find the trench safe and the earth untouched around it.
The young lord knew he had beaten Finvarra. He bade the men dig, and by the next day, they’d cut a glen right through the hill. When they put their ears to the ground, they heard fairy music, and voices floated on the air.
"Now," said one, "Finvarra is sad, for if those men strike a blow on his palace, it will crumble and fade away."
"Then let him surrender the bride," said another, "and we shall all be safe."
Then Finvarra himself spoke clear as a silver bugle: "Stop!" he said. "Lay down your spades, mortal men, and at sunset the bride shall return to her husband. I, Finvarra, have spoken."
The young lord commanded his men to stop digging. At sunset he mounted his chestnut steed and rode to the top of the glen, and just as the sun turned the sky blood-red, Enya appeared on the path. He lifted her to the saddle, and they rode to the castle like storm wind.
But Enya spoke not a word. Days passed, then months, and she lay on her bed in a trance.
Sorrow fell over the castle. The young lord and his people feared the enchantment could not be broken. But late one night, when he rode in the dark, he heard voices in the air.
"It is now a year and a day since the young lord reclaimed his bride, but she is no use to him. Though her form is beside him, her spirit is still with the fairies."
Another said, "She will be so until he breaks the spell. He must loosen the pin from the girdle she wears at her waist, and then he must burn the girdle. He must throw the ashes before the door and bury the pin in the earth. Only then will she speak and know true life."
The young lord spurred his horse and hastened to Enya’s chamber, where she lay like a lovely wax figure. He loosened her girdle and found the pin in its folds. He burned the girdle and scattered the ashes before the door, and he buried the pin in the earth, beneath a fairy thorn, that no hand would disturb it.
When he returned to his young wife, she looked up at him smiling and held out her hand.
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| Knock Ma |
The cut in the hill remains to this day and is called "The Fairy’s Glen."
("Enya the Bride" originally appeared on The Celtic Rose)
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Tam Lin, the Stolen Knight
Magical transformation legends abound in the lore of many cultures, yet the tale of the elfin knight Tam Lin is uniquely, deliciously Scottish. The rendition below is based on several versions of this renowned folk ballad, one of 305 collected by Harvard Professor Francis James Child during his nineteenth century tour of the British Isles. Scottish the tale may be, but Tam Lin loosely inspired my soon-to-be-released young adult novel, Glancing Through the Glimmer, uniquely, deliciously Irish. TAM LIN
Retold by Pat McDermott
Long ago, in the Scottish Borders, the people whispered of harm befalling young women who passed through the wood called Carterhaugh. This land belonged to Janet, the daughter of the Earl of March. The rumors of violence in her beloved forest enraged her—especially when her father forbade her and the maidens of his court to venture near Carterhaugh.
Undaunted, Janet called for her horse. She braided her yellow hair, tucked up her green petticoat, and galloped off to Carterhaugh to gather flowers for her gowns. She had cut only two red roses when an angry young man appeared before her.
“I am Tam Lin,” he said in a dusky voice. “Who gave you leave to pluck my roses?”
Janet raised her chin. “Your roses? These lands were part of my mother’s dowry. They are mine now. I’ll come and go as I please and ask leave of no one.”
Tam Lin seized Janet and had his will of her. He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving her deflowered and bewildered. She returned home hoping no one would learn of her folly, but as summer turned to autumn, her waist began to swell.
One of her father’s elderly knights offered to marry her, saying her father wished to keep her from shame. “I’ll marry no old man,” she said, “nor name any among you the father of my child.”
Yet Janet wondered what she would do. On a fine autumn morning, she returned to Carterhaugh seeking her fairy lover. The roses were nearly gone, and so, it seemed, was Tam Lin. When she knelt to pick the last pink rose, she caught a whiff of mint. Lurking nearby were the small round leaves of pennyroyal, a herb women used to dispense with unwanted babes. Janet sadly forsook the pink rose and bent to pluck the herb.
“Would you kill the babe we got between us, Janet?”
Both relieved and afraid, she rose and confronted Tam Lin. ”What sort of child would I bear, and his father of the fairy ilk?”
“I was sired by a mortal knight and born of a mortal lady, as were you, Janet. Some years ago, as I hunted nearby, an unearthly drowsiness came over me. The Queen of Fairies caught me when I fell from my horse. She keeps me under her spell, and though I want for nothing, I long to return to the home and lands that are rightfully mine.”
“You can never leave?”
He shook his head. “Worse is to come, I fear. Every seven years, the fairies must pay a tithe to hell. The tithe is due tonight, and I suspect it will be me.”
Janet’s heart beat in her throat. The child within her leapt. “Can nothing save you?”
“Mayhap. Tonight is Halloween, and the fairy folk ride. They will pass Miles Cross at the murk of midnight. If you bide there, you can win me from them.”
“I will come,” she said, “but how will I know you among them? What am I to do?”
“Wait by the stream and watch. The knights on black steeds will pass first, then the ladies and the Queen of Fairies on their brown mares. I will ride the milk-white steed that follows. They give me that honor, for I was an earthly knight. You must pull me from my steed. Can you do that, and you with child?”
Janet swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. “I can if it will deliver you from them.”
His fleeting smile turned to a worried frown. “You will hear them shout that Tam Lin is away. They will wield great magic to recapture me. Be brave and remember: I am your baby’s father.”
“You will say so to more than me, Tam Lin. What kind of magic?”
Again, he smiled, this time with a gleam of hope. “They will turn me in your arms to many fearsome creatures, but for the love of our child, hold me fast and fear me not. When at last they turn me to a burning coal, throw me into the stream at once. I will come to you a naked knight. Hide me in your mantle, and all will be well.”
Tam Lin melted into the air.
That night, when the moon rose, Janet stole from her father’s hall and rode to Miles Cross as fast as she dared. Clouds rolled in and covered the moon and stars, and she waited alone in the darkness. Hours passed. She nearly lost hope.
Then the tinkle of bridles rang in the distance, and the moon broke free of the clouds. Casting a terrible light of their own, the fairy folk rode toward her.
Fearsome knights pranced by on black steeds that breathed fire. Ladies on brown mares with jewels on their reins came next. When the milk-white steed appeared, Janet grabbed the rider’s leg and wrenched him from the horse.
“He’s away!” cried the fairies. “Tam Lin is away!”
The man in Janet’s arms became a fierce wolf. She screamed, but she held him fast. He changed to a hissing snake, and she thought she would faint. A lion came next, but she never let go. When Tam Lin turned to a burning coal, she flung him into the stream.
He came to her, as he said he would, a naked knight. She cloaked him in her mantle.
The Queen of Fairies cursed the woman who’d stolen her earthly knight. “Had I known you would leave us, Tam Lin,” she cried, “I would have put out your eyes long ago, that you never could tell what you saw in my realm.”
The fairies vanished. Tam Lin kissed Janet, and she brought him to her father’s hall.
("Tam Lin" originally appeared on Celtic Queens)
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"Band of Roses" Trilogy Under Contract!
I'm delighted to announce that my complete "Band of Roses" trilogy, A Band of Roses, Fiery Roses, and Salty Roses, are now under contract with MuseItUp Publishing. Release dates are tentatively set for May, August, and November 2012. Excerpts are available on my web site's Writing Page.Saturday, August 6, 2011
Alaska - The Celtic Connection
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| Baby Polar Bear Courtesy of Photobucket |
Despite all the shore excursions and cruise activities, I got some work done. Stealing a block of writing time (and a Kir Royale or two) in one of the ship’s secluded spots proved no hardship. By the end of the voyage, I’d managed to draft three chapters of Autumn Glimmer, a young adult adventure set in Ireland, and the sequel to Glancing Through the Glimmer, scheduled for release this November. I’ve spent months reading mythology and archaeology books to spruce up my knowledge of water fairies, lake monsters, and crannogs, man-made islands built in lakes and rivers by prehistoric and medieval people. Fairies and monsters make sense to me. The crannogs do not.
Ten months have passed since I blogged about my visit to the Connemara Heritage and History Centre to view a reconstructed crannog. Archaeologists have dated these lake dwellings to prehistoric times. Written history tells us the Irish still inhabited them during the Elizabethan period, when they served as forts, arsenals, and hideouts. Who first built these strange abodes? And for all the toil it took to construct them, why did they bother?Theories abound; I’ll note a few here. In Mesolithic times, impenetrable forests covered Ireland. Lakes and rivers served as the people’s highways, and they might have built crannogs as clan gathering places during seasonal festivals. Still, I can’t help wondering why the people didn’t simply fell a few trees and build houses. The idea that they venerated trees and refused to cut them down doesn’t work. They set plenty of tree trunks into the lake beds as foundations for their crannogs.
Did they live on the water because they felt the woodlands belonged to the forest gods they very likely worshiped? Or did they fear the wild boars, wolves, bears, and gigantic, lethally antlered deer who lived in the woods? Perhaps the ancients revered a sun god and had to go out on the lake to commune with him because the dense forest canopy blocked the sky. Then there’s the idea that if clearing land for cattle and crops proved more labor intensive than building crannogs, the people would consider their precious arable and pasture too valuable to waste on human habitation.
Crannogs clearly housed a wide range of social classes over the ages. In addition to weapons, sewing needles, and tradesmen’s tools, archaeologists have unearthed precious objects only the privileged classes could have afforded. The discovery of manacles suggests some crannogs served as prisons. Most experts believe pre-Celtic peoples used crannogs as storage facilities, for shelter and defense, and for platforms from which they tossed votive offerings to assuage lake gods. Some crannogs stood as single structures. Temples or shrines? Others formed entire "water towns." Why?
In my recent post describing the end of my Alaskan cruise, I mentioned a catamaran trip to Misty Fjords, a glacially carved wilderness accessible only by boat or plane. In a small inlet called God’s Pocket, the naturalist on board narrated the Native American history of the area. She also described how the mountains teemed with bald eagles, brown and black bears, moose, wolverines, river otters, black-tailed deer, mountain goats, mink, beavers, and foxes. She pointed out a rocky ledge frequently crossed by wolf packs. Spruce, hemlock, and cedar covered the steep slopes right down to the shore. No hiking trails pierced the trees, and hikers who dared to explore the region often lost their way.
Gazing out at the fiercely beautiful scenery, I sensed an odd kinship with the first crannog builders. I felt eerily safe on the tour boat, and I was only visiting the area for a few short hours. For superstitious peoples living their entire lives in such a ruggedly primitive world, a crannog must have imparted an otherworldly sense of security, a mystical, life-giving refuge whose protective waters provided food and simplified travel.I already have my lake monster and a troop of mischievous water fairies. I think I’m good to go.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Juneau and Ketchikan
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| Juneau From the Ship |
We began our tour with a stroll along the city’s main street and visited lots of gift shops, some touristy, most exhibiting lovely works of locally produced art. At a row of tour stalls on the pier, we booked a bus tour to see both the city and the famous Mendenhall Glacier, a dazzling frozen river that sprouts from the Juneau Icefield.
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| The Mendenhall Glacier |
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| The Ice Up Close - So Blue! |
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| The Crystal Symphony Docked in Juneau |
Ketchikan also bears the dubious distinction of the "Rain Capital of Alaska." We began our tour in the covered top deck wondering if the drizzly gray skies would be with us all day. Soon, we were out on deck, for the weather cleared as we made our way through a lush green wilderness carved out by glaciers. Using an entertaining storytelling style, a knowledgeable naturalist told us of the geology, ecology, and history of the areas we visited. For me, Misty Fjords, which provides a breathtakingly beautiful habitat for bald eagles, wolves, bears, deer, moose, fox, and goats, and other sea and animal life, was the highlight of the cruise.
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| Misty Fjords |
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| New Eddystone Rock (Volcanic Formation) |
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| One of Misty Fjord's Many Waterfalls |
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| Water Deep Green from the Trees and the Minerals on the Lake Bed |
♪ Oh, yeah! ♫
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