tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41778931311638192712011-06-08T01:46:58.311-05:00A cooperative blog for the scribes of the Ghostletters list.Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-65012726845518273582007-06-22T14:14:00.000-05:002007-06-22T14:20:28.298-05:00

I have just started a blog I hope will become collaborative. It won't have fiction on it.. but it will be a great resource.The Anglo Saxon England BlogI am a bit punch drunk from trying to share and learn on the Yahoogroup of a reenactment group where I was described, among other choice words, as unwilling to offer 50-50 or taking and not giving and so forth and so on.. no one ever told me

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-63561748618706518842007-03-21T08:07:00.000-05:002007-03-21T08:17:55.252-05:00

I've been suspecting for some time now that the saga of Renard DuPrey and Lily Rose Silver was more than a tale to scheherazade on Ghostletters. Now I've stepped into the deep end of the swimming pool, and started turning it into a novel! I've joined a virtual writers' workshop (the venerable Internet Writing Workshop), and also a physical one, which meets once a month and discusses manuscripts

Lilia Rosa Argentonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-88107834930233435122007-02-20T08:58:00.000-05:002007-03-02T08:39:18.478-05:00

As Lilia, Wendy and I launched our massively braided storyline, we found that a simple "to-do" list just wasn't cutting it. The intricacies of "who's doing what to whom" were just too deep, and we were horribly afraid of someone's neglecting to insert a critical bit of background. There's nothing worse than having to halt a roller-coaster storyline to say, "By the way, we neglected to tell you

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-69667554862133595872007-02-05T09:31:00.000-05:002007-02-05T09:38:17.443-05:00

(compiled and edited by SealWyf)The team is discussing plot advancement through virtual parties.SealWyf: I managed to get some plot-advancement in as well, even though I don't have a player character at the party, except for a walk-on by the demon Caterwampus.Wendy Massey: Are you going to say how he got past all the anti-demon wards?SealWyf: No. If it comes up, he'll just say that obscenities

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-59553390808716563722007-02-05T08:50:00.000-05:002007-02-05T09:37:14.821-05:00

(compiled and edited by SealWyf)SealWyf: I always found virtual parties annoying, because they had so much potential. Once in a while the medium worked and you got real magic. The presidential campaign on the old VAMPYRES was a case in point. But usually they were just random bumpings-into and smart-ass one-liners. I pretty much stopped attending virtual parties. Then I decided that if I did

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-46431659149421728052007-01-25T19:31:00.000-05:002007-01-26T08:57:59.336-05:00

How interesting that I am not only stuck feeling overwhelmed with the writing of a battle.. hey one of my favorite things is in there.. a shield wall! What's not to like?But I am finding the prospect of writing the scene with the ritual insults that were part of the beginning of every battle in the Dark Ages quite daunting! If I could fall back on the colorful vernacular in the film, "Johnny

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-42419522356585790932007-01-25T15:38:00.000-05:002007-01-25T15:52:25.892-05:00

You don't usually find Edward Lear in a high tragedy. But the Writer's Almanac featured "The Jumblies" several days ago, and I found myself thinking, "Oh my God, that's Sirius Gate!"Of course when you are head over heels into a story line, everything seems relevant. Still, the idea of these foolish little creatures going to sea in a sieve seemed so similar to the hubris of fragile humans

Wendy Masseynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-14521347143946220682007-01-23T12:58:00.000-05:002007-01-23T13:31:41.647-05:00

I assume all writers run into this problem.. being all up and jazzed about writing something and then suddenly having the wind knocked out of one's sails. Just check my last two posts here... all about how wonderful and splendid and amazing it feels to write.So how come today I feel so ennervated? Here are some possible reasons.I am letting little mindless or slightly mindful tasks sap my

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-71221233402468678452007-01-23T07:12:00.000-05:002007-01-23T07:27:19.590-05:00

Mario and I have been discussing the definition of poetry. I have joined the WOM-PO list (women poets) in an effort to reawaken my old poetry circuits, and I find that much of what is published now doesn't feel like poetry to me. It's written in short lines (usually), but it reads like prose that has been chopped up and stacked like cordwood down the left side of the page.My sense is that poetry

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-76940179890902779792007-01-22T09:36:00.000-05:002007-01-22T09:43:58.760-05:00

This morning's post wrote itself. The character who had something to say to the new arrivals was Mendel and he was not friendly. One of the problems with dealing with a largely modern cast of characters with many resources available is they also live in a world shaped by modern history which is cruel, ugly, and full of injustice. I also play very few WASP characters. Naama, Ba-Ba, Tamima, Tamara,

Eileen Kramernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-91053545672920994012007-01-21T10:32:00.000-05:002007-01-21T10:36:53.031-05:00

I have decided to take my friends' advice and run Santa Claus as a year-round character. I'm not at all sure how I'll be doing this. It would be easy to move it in a social-satire direction, with labor problems with the elves and a bout of cabin fever for Mr. and Mrs. Claus. I don't want to do this. It feels too simple, too obvious. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear, and weigh each post to

Nick Swannnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-23960526879658441002007-01-20T23:59:00.000-05:002007-01-21T00:13:21.732-05:00

Liyo (Leopold Blackwell -- Max L. Neumann PhD uses what is probably a Unviersal diminuitive or a nickname for Leo) is pulling my plots sideways. He was an unplanned for development, a once over character whom I created so that Tareisia could tell a story about demons, a lynching, and revenge back in 1947. The catch is the story was true. Brendan McInnerny asked for a ghost of a slave. I thought

Eileen Kramernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-71976269580074985802007-01-19T17:51:00.000-05:002007-01-19T17:57:56.381-05:00

I'm very proud of this one. The idea came to me in the dim hours this morning. The monosyllabic questions: What? Who? When? How? Where? Why? The slightly spacey, underwater feeling of the small hours before dawn. The utter digust and weariness that is starting to erode John Chung's judgement.I composed it almost like a poem, forcing each word to speak. I hope it works for those who read it.

Wendy Masseynoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-78714101627872874682007-01-18T18:14:00.000-05:002007-01-19T10:48:15.048-05:00

Pictured: Saxon church[I don't know why I am suddenly the only one posting here.. jump right in, you guys!]I realized another part of the flow of how I right that I enjoy immensely that I only alluded to in the last post is how the landscape itself unrolls. Throughout all the "Queen and Shannon escaping" storyline I have had only the most general image of forest, river, hills. That geography,

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-59405902427924742092007-01-17T18:14:00.000-05:002007-01-18T09:18:16.328-05:00

This past year of writing real fiction has given me so much joy I can't express it adequately, but that never stopped me from trying.I truly don't know how other people write. Do they map out a story with an outline? Do they know the basics and just write? Or do they skip around, rounding off the story, then edit it to death until they like it? I have discovered what my writing strategy is

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-51390320682398578432007-01-16T18:50:00.000-05:002007-01-17T08:48:24.765-05:00

The original "Ghostletters" was the brainchild of Steve Sikora, the originator and publisher for many, many years of "The Letter Exchange" a monthly print publication with hundreds of listings of people looking for conversations on mutual topics. The Ghostletters section was added to allow subscribers to send letters back and forth as fictional or historical characters. I fondly remember my

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-66425453277188640822007-01-13T22:14:00.000-05:002007-01-13T22:45:55.533-05:00

This brainstorm is as much an invitation to share your thoughts in the "comments" as an effort to identify for myself what has worked and not worked in collaborations on Ghostletters.Just writing what I think of as I think of it, here are my offerings.1. The most obvious: there has to be something to work with. A premise. A situation. A relationship. It has to be something all involved can

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-43602928057075384882007-01-04T19:57:00.000-05:002007-01-04T23:50:56.388-05:00

I started writing the novel about the Christenlanders ten months ago as I described in both my earlier posts here. I had no sense then that there would be any "Author" but myself.Then I rediscovered Laura, the person who wrote the original stories with me when we were teens. And much to both her and my surprise, she got involved in the retelling.From then on until September I absolutely fed off

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-64137511237327343062007-01-04T08:29:00.000-05:002007-01-04T08:34:54.052-05:00

Road trips always require planning. In this case, Vijaya's trip to Lame Deer with Amber and whinge queen Silla, was a trip in to terra incognita. I am always thankful for Mapquest in these situations and even more thankful for this site. Lame Deer is truely the ass end of nowhere. One thing about writing about Native Americans is you are dealing with poor deracinated people who are still

Eileen Kramernoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-63059174747139193272007-01-04T06:52:00.000-05:002007-01-04T07:20:06.929-05:00

Last night I posted Sirius Gate: Cyborg, in which the first suicide occurs. The suicide was the primary reason for the post. However, the act itself happens offscreen, and its discovery is compressed to a few sentences at the end of the chapter. What's going on here?Most of the chapter is concerned with Karsten Niija, Sirius Gate's resident cyborg. For the first time, we get a detailed

Wendy Masseynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-80395545842723608552007-01-03T14:31:00.000-05:002007-01-03T18:19:22.741-05:00

By Nan HawthorneGhostletters is, first of all, responsible for the very existence of my novel in progress. That seems fitting, since I am originally responsible for the existence of the list. It is because I decided a year ago this month to get involved with Ghostletters again and at the suggestion of my husband that I use my Christenlande characters that I started getting interested in rewriting

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-75433158624118707232007-01-02T23:51:00.000-05:002007-01-03T00:07:11.811-05:00

Hello there! I'd like to comment on the coincidence thread. I think my large group of characters and multiple plot lines is pulling apart rather than coming together. I did hope to get Vijaya (along with Kelli) to Ithaca for the Christmas holiday. I couldn't get the whole Brainiac Posse (Alise, Naama, and Vijaya) together because Alise was sick down in Langley.Now the plots are really pulling in

Eileen Kramernoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-45641037113693921832007-01-02T19:47:00.000-05:002007-01-02T20:04:05.617-05:00

I just posted another installment of "What Renard and Sabira do in bed", this one set in the early hours of New Year's Day.So, should I be ashamed of myself? Am I singlehandedly trying to get GL kicked off Yahoo! Groups, or into its adults-only section? And what is all this erotica doing in a story line that was originally supposed to be a comic romp with superheroes?Okay, I'll admit that this

Lilia Rosa Argentonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-83555071406287446622007-01-01T17:40:00.001-05:002007-01-02T17:41:11.819-05:00

As Wendy said, having lots of characters is a great help in setting up "coincidence", which I assume she is using the the sense of "related things happening at the same time" rather than "really weird things happening at the same time".Another way to have related events come together is to let them be driven by external events--seasons, news events, holidays, and so on. We are lucky at the moment

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-71106996898454108612007-01-01T14:04:00.000-05:002007-01-01T14:18:21.343-05:00

One advantage of running multiple storylines is that you can schedule events in the different stories to play off each other. Since the Sirius Gate disaster and Maxine's subsequent madness, I've had three parallel stories to tell. And after Megan Lau moves on to Mars Orbiter, I'll have four. I actually have another character on Mars Orbiter, Ishaq Rivera y Suliman; I expect that after Megan gets

Wendy Masseynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-18286478344103047792006-12-31T18:40:00.000-05:002007-01-03T14:50:53.265-05:00

I am the one person on Ghostletters who does not describe herself as a "scribe". Most of my characters, that is everyone in and related to the mythic late 8th century kingdom of Christenlande, are fictional.. and they know it. Someone once said he thought this was at best awkward and at worst childish.. not his words .. but came to see the dilemma the characters face as being rather.. well..

Nan Hawthornenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-75363063425766085772006-12-31T15:43:00.000-05:002007-01-01T14:19:23.708-05:00

Thanks a lot, Seal. Here I was planning on spending the afternoon writing about the Winter Festival on poor doomed Sirius Gate, and you go and start a new blog. And of course I have to contribute.I won't say that characters are taking over the story, but I really did intend to have a larger role for John Winston-Smith and the Other Earnesty. In fact, they were the reason I created Earnesty Chung

Wendy Masseynoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-63593559538387981612006-12-31T15:35:00.000-05:002007-01-01T01:25:24.834-05:00

Nicks' right about characters writing themselves. When I started on GL, I intended to write the comic adventures of my namesake, Lily Rose Silver, and her family of not-too-stellar superheroes. But my villain, Renard DuPrey, has grabbed the story with both hands and won't let go. Once he told me his backstory, I was hooked. That fact that Seal has given him a hottie of a girlfriend helps, of

Lilia Rosa Argentonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-57379086416508012172006-12-31T15:29:00.000-05:002007-01-01T01:26:42.424-05:00

I'm delighted to have a place to discuss these things with other writers. When I created Santa Claus on the list, I saw him as a one-off character, who would vanish after Christmas. Now I'm thinking of keeping him around. But what can Santa do in the non-holiday year? My friend Matt suggested showing the day-to-day life in the Workshop, planning the next year's toys, and possibly having Santa

Nick Swannnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4177893131163819271.post-32250089408581945112006-12-31T14:49:00.000-05:002007-01-02T17:39:49.728-05:00

This blog is about the Ghostletters list. Ghostletters is an email list, currently hosted on Yahoo! Groups, for the creation of characters and the telling of stories. Some useful links:the Yahoo! groupthe official explanatory portalour authors' wikiMy own SealWyf wiki is a workshop for storycrafting.All fine resources, to be sure. But recently we have felt the need for something more. We

Barbara Weitbrechtnoreply@blogger.com0