News – Page 20

An Update

November 20, 2012 by Carey Jane Clark

My apologies, in advance, to my subscription readers for this post. You may want to read it on the blogsite instead.

You may be wondering, “Where in the world is Carey Jane Clark?”

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Well, I’m still here in China

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But have been busy with NaNoWriMo

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But also with final pre-publication editing of the print version of After the Snow Falls

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since it will become available for sale in the very near future.

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I have also been very busy as we’ve started a weekly ESL Class in our home

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which has been taking some time to prepare.

While we won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving this week

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because we are Canadian

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and celebrated Thanksgiving in October when it is proper and fitting for a Canadian to do so,

I am still thankful

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for all our many blessings

and I will post again tomorrow, when I am all caught up with life again.

- Carey Clark

I can’t believe it’s November 6th. Probably the only reason I know the date is because Sweetpea’s birthday is tomorrow. I realized today I’m overdue for my Write This Way post for November. (I’ll get that up later this week.)

There has been much activity at our house. We started ESL classes for the neighbor kids a couple of weeks ago, and that’s taken quite a bit of time for me to organize and prepare.

And Thursday last week was a really big day because our furniture finally arrived!

Here are some pictures of my favorite rooms, although every room makes us sigh with pleasure upon walking into it. After seven months sleeping on the floor and crouched around Rubbermaid-type bins pushed together in lieu of a table, we will never again take furniture for granted!

Here is the final edit of the homeschool room (except for the fact that our If/Then Chart has disappeared from the cupboard door behind Pumpkin–anyone seen it?) This space was lovely to work in even with our tiny little table. Now it’s truly our dream homeschool space. Everything is so convenient, we have storage for all our things. Wonderful!

A table! AND chairs! Wow. This is the marvel everyone seems to be appreciating the most. The kids keep remarking about being able to tuck their legs under something and how easy it is not to spill and make a big mess. My biggest thrill is the round table. I grew up eating at a round table. It’s so cozy and conducive to conversation!

Yep. They’re as comfy as they look. Already caught myself snoozing on the sofa.

As wonderful as the rest of the house is, this is perhaps my favorite little corner. It’s where I’ve been hammering out a lot of the words for NaNoWriMo (current count 7041–down a little on my daily count today since I was baking for Sweetpea’s aformentioned birthday).

It’s right next to the homeschool room, so super convenient and my desk matches JavaMan’s–a his and hers set.

A special word of thanks to Home Essentials of Hong Kong for making it all come together.

What a blessing! We are overwhelmed–again!

- Carey Clark

NaNoWriMo 2012

November 5, 2012 by Carey Jane Clark

I made a decision recently to write every day. To see if I could keep that up for a whole year. The plan was to use 750words.com and just do it.

Then a friend on Facebook asked who was doing NaNoWriMo. I’ve wanted to. Every year I’ve wanted to. I always made excuses, and I never did it. Sometimes, the excuses were somewhat legitimate. The rules are that you must be working on a brand-new novel–not a single word can be written before midnight November 1st. So when I was still finishing After the Snow Falls, I thought it would give me literary ADD if I started something else.

But this year, I had already been doing research for a new novel. I hadn’t written a word yet because I was still working out details of plot. I put the push on, hammered out a plot I’m very pleased with, and took the plunge.

Today is day five (5), and I’m just packing it in for the day after writing my 6,387th word. I’m a little behind–our furniture arrived last week. We spent a chaotic day in a sea of dressers, chairs and tables with mountains of cardboard and protective plastic wrap. We had to rush to get everything set up because 20 students were coming for an ESL class THAT NIGHT!

With the help of some good friends and neighbors we finished the job and the house looked beautiful and serene in time for 20 kids to come in and bounce all over the new furniture! (Pictures and post to come).

I’m hoping to make up the words over time–I exceeded the daily count today and yesterday. And I’m loving this! I’m wondering why I’ve never tried it before! I learned so much the first time around with After the Snow Falls. The seasoning of that experience has definitely taught me the tricks I need to keep going.

And this experience is teaching me a valuable lesson of its own: you never know what you might be able to accomplish unless you try.

- Carey Clark

Interview with Author Mark Miller

November 2, 2012 by Carey Jane Clark

Friday Fiction Fix Mark Miller is an author with Trestle Press. I asked him if he would be willing to be interviewed when I learned he was writing a serial novel in collaboration with his daughter. I thought this was such an inspiring and wonderful idea. Here is his story:

Tell us about the project you’re working on with your daughter.

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Olivia and I call it a Christian Sci-Fantasy, a combination of science fiction and fantasy. It is the story of three brothers who lose their father under mysterious circumstances and then are forced to go separate ways for five years. They grow and change during that time in order to return and discover the truth of what happened to their father. While the story takes place on another planet, their beliefs are not too different from our own. The message is about what can be accomplished through God and that we do not always know or understand God’s plans for us.

How long have you been writing?

Basically, all of my life. Mostly I did it as a hobby and for fun. I took classes in high school and college. In 2008, I became a professional author when The Fourth Queen was published.

How old is your daughter?

Olivia is 9, almost 10. We started this project when she was 8 and we will finish the story this month with Volume 8.

Tell us a little bit about her.

She is a beautiful young lady, witty and intelligent. She gets most of that from her mother. She can be a little shy, but normally she is a class leader (an ability I did not have at her age). I tell people she is named after me. I was named after Mark Twain and his wife was named Olivia. Maybe it’s a stretch, but she likes it.

Do you think she will grow up to be a writer?

I can hope. But as I said above, we don’t know what God has in store for us. My wife and I encourage all of our children (4 of them) to pursue their interests and build on their strengths. Olivia already has an excellent foundation to be whatever she chooses. She will be way smarter than me as an adult.

How did you and your daughter originally begin to collaborate? Was it her idea or yours?

Olivia had done a few writing projects in school. I really liked her voice, what she put into her writing. She has a fantastic vocabulary and a good sense of humor. The story came from some notes in my “idea file”. We developed the outline together and I relied on her for creating the world of Kaskaya.

How does your collaboration work? Do you brainstorm ideas together or actively work on word choice and writing the story together?

All of the character and place names are hers. She is the creative one on this and I do all the “heavy lifting”. That means that I do all of the typing. The majority of actual writing is me. However, I task her with writing specific scenes or events and then I flesh it out. I definitely do not sit over her shoulder. I let her find her own way and then we review what she has before it goes into the final edit.

When do you find the time to write together?

We have to make time. Usually on the weekends, we will sit down together. Weekdays are filled with homework, chores and video games.

What (if anything) has it done for your relationship with your daughter?

It has given me the opportunity to be amazed at her talents. I get a sneak peek at the adult she will soon be. Our family is very close, so it allowed me to see her in a different light.

Tell us about your other books.

My full-length novels are The Empyrical Tales, a fantasy adventure of 8 planned books. To date, The Fourth Queen, The Lost Queen and The Secret Queen are available in paperback and eBook. I have an educational children’s series called Small World Global Protection Agency and a spiritual anthology for the grown-ups called One, featuring true stories from many award-winning and best-selling authors.

Where can readers find out more about you?

My main website is www.MillerWords.com, but I like to connectwith readers on Facebook at www.fb.com/MarkMillerAuthor. If anybody has their Kindle handy, they can find all of my stories at http://goo.gl/IglPH.

Thanks, Mark, for stopping by and sharing your story.

Thank you for having me! I look forward to feedback from your readers.

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