fiction – Lena Corazon

Tag: fiction

Celebrating Valentine’s Day with ALL The Books

Original image courtesy of varbenov / kozzi.com

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R. R. Martin

“A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” — Carl Sagan

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.” — Virginia Woolf

Since Valentine’s Day is all about love, I thought that this would be the perfect time to declare my lifelong passion and commitment to the best partner a girl could ever have: books.

As I like to say, lovers come and go, but books are forever. If I tried, I could probably measure my life in books, for they are at the center of my earliest memories. They’ve built up my soul like so many Tetris blocks, bits and pieces shaping my imagination and my heart. Their lives and the worlds continue to swirl about in my head–echoes of story and tale that comfort, heal, and teach, even as they entertain.

So this Valentine’s Day, I will be curling up with a bottle of wine and one of the dozens of books that have been clamoring for my attention. There will be classical music, and my favorite fuzzy blanket. If I am lucky, my cat may even show up and keep me company–the best sort of solo date night, in my opinion.

To celebrate this lifelong love affair, I’m sharing a handful of books that I fell in love with during my last book binge, when I managed to plow through eight books in seven days. I was full beyond belief by the end of it, but ohhhhh, it was a delicious feast while it lasted.

Here are my early favorites of 2013:

THE RUTH VALLEY MISSING by Amber Medina West
[Amazon | Goodreads]
Genre: Mystery
Synopsis:
Jameson Quinn trades in the crime, pollution, and drama of the big city for the quiet serenity of Ruth Valley. When a young man goes missing, Jameson starts to suspect that something sinister may be happening beneath the small town’s veneer of perfection.
Why It’s Awesome:
SO many reasons. Jameson is a wonderful protagonist, and someone I pretty much want to be BFFs with. She’s snarky, spunky, and intelligent, with the courage to go digging after the town’s secrets even when it becomes clear that doing so could come at the cost of her personal safety. And let’s not forget the fantastically snappy dialogue, or the well-paced plot, or the setting itself — Ruth Valley really is the perfect tiny town, but Amber West does a fantastic job in highlighting the ways that small communities can seem creepy.

With 33 five star reviews on Amazon, I am clearly not the only one who fell in love with this book. So go out and get it! You won’t be disappointed.

THE OUROBOROS CYCLE, BOOK ONE by G.D. Falksen
[Amazon]
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Synopsis:
Babette Varanus is the scion of a wealthy 19th century French family, but she has little in common with her peers. After her grandfather’s enemies turn her world upside down, she finds herself pursuing a path that leads into the unknown, complete with vampires, mysteries, and all sors of dark secrets.
Why It’s Awesome:
In many ways, the tone of the novel reminds me of old 19th century horror novels in the vein of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, while still managing to be original. This is an amazingly creative twist on the vampire/werewolf genre, and one that features a truly badass protagonist. Babette Varanus is not only resilient and resourceful, but the sort of woman who learns how to create her own future. As a side-note, I highly recommend checking out G.D. Falksen’s accompanying Pinterest board for this book. It is gorgeous, sumptuous, and absolutely magical.

ONLY HUMAN by Chris Reher
[Amazon | Goodreads]
Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis:
Captain Nova Whiteside is promoted to elite Vanguard status in the Commonwealth army, and paired with Major Tychon, her straight-laced Delphian commanding officer. The two are forced to grapple with their differences when a crazed, power-hungry rebel leader gets his hands on a weapon that could destroy the universe.
Why It’s Awesome:
I love sci-fi, but I don’t tend to read a lot of it. ONLY HUMAN was a wonderful surprise. Not only did Chris Reher deliver a great adventure with a deeply satisfying romance subplot, but she also gives us a great example of world-building done right. Every character feels three-dimensional and real, and the array of alien cultures and planets are vivid and lifelike. There is plenty of action, adventure, and romance to be had here.

RUN ROSIE RUN by C.C. MacKenzie
[Amazon | Goodreads]
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:
Rosie Gordon has everything she wants in life, but she can’t rid herself of the lifelong crush she’s had on her best friend’s brother, Alexander Ludlow. But when unrequited love turns into something more, will it be too much for her to handle?
Why It’s Awesome:
Okay, first up is a confession: I’ve read everything that C.C. MacKenzie has written. I know, I know, I say that like it’s a bad thing, but it really isn’t, because she is my new go-to author for steamy romance. What I love about her work is that she is brilliant when it comes to zeroing in on the transition between lust and love. It’s that moment of capitulation, when her hero and heroine finally decide to give in to their feelings and one another, that she does so well, and this book is no exception.

RUN ROSIE RUN can be read on its own, but it is Book 3 in the Ludlow Hall series. Book 1, RECKLESS NIGHTS IN ROME, is free on Amazon. Pick up a copy. You can thank me later.

ACROSS A MOONLIT SEA by Marsha Canham
[Amazon | Goodreads]
Genre: Historical Romance
Synopsis:
Simon Dante, an aristocrat and infamous privateer who is one of Queen Elizabeth’s most successful “sea haws,” meets his match in the beautiful but fierce Isabeau Spence, who serves on her father’s merchant ship. As sexual tension boils over between them, they find themselves caught up in the threat of war between England and Spain.
Why It’s Awesome:
I actually don’t know where to start, because this book blew me away. Marsha Canham’s use of historical detail is nothing short of amazing, the romance and tension between Simon Dante and Beau Spence is delicious, and her writing is exquisite. The book is an exercise in “show vs. tell”; her descriptions are vivid and, simply put, gorgeous. For example:

Their leader, the fifth Marquis of Moncada, was a rotund strut of a man with a face like a boil of dough stretched too thin over spidery red veins. He had small, dark eyes set so close together, they seemed to touch at the bridge, and he had made a feeble attempt to hide a weak chin under an abram beard trimmed to a perfect point.

Ack! I love it!

If you like action, adventure, and a good bodice-ripping historical romance, give it a read. And, y’know, the Kindle version is currently free on Amazon, so grab it while you can.

Have you read anything lately that’s made your list of new favorites? Share them in the comments!

The Pygmalion Effect, or When Fictional Creations Steal Your Heart

October 12, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 8 Comments

It’s something that we’ve all done before: fallen in love with a fictional character.

Really, how can anyone be expected to resist the well-written character? They are vibrant, compelling, imbued with an energy that, at times, defies rational understanding. They leap off the page, demand our attention, and come to life in our imaginations.

They come to dwell within us; even after the book is long finished, we carry them around in our heads and hearts, maybe even sigh over them from time to time. They become old friends, and our lives are enriched because of them.

Sound familiar?

I covered my favorite fictional heroes about a year ago, but lately I’ve been thinking about the flip-side: how easy it is for a writer to fall in love with her creation.

Confession: This is something that I do on a regular basis, but I have one character who’s the alpha male among my collection of very attractive, very delicious heroes. Pierce is “my favorite mistake,” and since October 12th is his birthday, I thought I’d poke at this idea a bit further.

Pygmalion sculptant Galatée (Primatice) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If ancient myths are to be trusted, then we can assume that artists have been falling in love with their creations for eons. Anyone remember poor Pygmalion, the sculptor who fashions a statue so exquisitely beautiful that he falls desperately in love with it? As Ovid describes in his Metamorphoses,

[Pygmalion] took to art,
Ingenious as he was, and made a creature
More beautiful than any girl on earth,
A miracle of ivory in a statue,
So charming that it made him fall in love.
Her face was life itself; she was a darling—
And yet too modest to permit advances
Which showed his art had artful touches in it,
The kind of art that swept him off his feet;
He stroked her arms, her face, her sides, her shoulder.
Was she alive or not? He could not tell.

Pygmalion is so taken with his statue that he can’t quite tell the difference between fantasy and reality. His actions become, shall we say, a little unhinged. He brings “her” presents, decorates her with jewelry, pretends she’s his wife. He even tucks her into bed next to him where she sleeps “On cloth of purple, as if she shared his dreams,/Her head at rest upon a feathered pillow.”

Of course, I really can’t judge. I may not have, er, taken my fictional characters to bed with me, but we spend a lot of time together. They’re like my imaginary friends. I plot their lives, figure out their deepest wishes and desires, send them on adventures, periodically find ways to torture them, and eventually give them what they want.

Charming, right?

I know my characters better than I know my own family. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but we’re close. So it shouldn’t be surprising that, like Pygmalion, I constantly crush on my heroes.

Hugh Jackman at the X-Men Origins: Wolverine p...

Hugh Jackman was the inspiration for Pierce. (Photo credit: Grant Brummett; Photo Source: Wikipedia)

None of them, however, have managed to get under my skin the way that Pierce has.

He really wasn’t supposed to. 10 years ago I was in the middle of a silly story starring all of my friends and me, this ridiculous little drabble about what we’d be like as grown-up people. Pierce was originally a minor character, introduced to create a very cliche love-triangle and inject a bit of tension into the story.

But sometimes (okay, often), those of us who write find that our creations take on a will and a mind of their own. In this case, Pierce flexed his considerable muscles and decided to stay. I couldn’t get rid of him.

Pierce was initially inspired by Hugh Jackman (they share a birthday) and his various roles. I infused him with Leopold’s old-fashioned charm and sense of honor, Wolverine’s love of motorcycles, and Eddie Alden’s wit, but over the last decade, he’s grown far beyond his origins.

Somewhere along the way, Pierce has become a healer, a painter, a gardener, a man protects and guards those who come his way. He’s responsible, steadfast, and serious–sometimes a little too serious for his own good.

Despite the many ridiculous situations I’ve thrown him into, I’ve realized that there’s a single constant: he begins his adventure without full knowledge of his powers and talents. He runs from his destiny, but he’s eventually forced into it by the woman whose fate is entwined with his.

So yay, Pierce, and happy birthday!

Birthday Cake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But let’s wander back to Pygmalion for a moment. Unlike most artists, he receives the ultimate gift: the godess Venus takes pity on him and brings his statue to life. Ovid tells us that she even comes “down to be their guest at wedding/And blessed them both.” Not a bad ending for a guy that probably seemed a few screws loose to the rest of his family and friends. 😛

So what say you, friends?

Are there any fictional characters–either ones you’ve invented or ones that you’re drawn to from your favorite books/movies/television shows–that you’d like to see come to life?

Jumping Aboard the Lucky 7 Meme-Mobile

April 4, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 40 Comments

I won’t lie — I absolutely love watching memes spread through the interwebz like wildfire. The Lucky 7 meme has been particularly fun to watch, because there’s nothing like seeing snippets from other writers’ WIPs.

Thanks to the ever-wonderful Rachel Funk Heller and J.R. Pearse Nelson, Lucky 7 madness has made it to Flights of Fancy. These are the rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP

2. Go to line 7

3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.

4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.

I’m posting 7 sentences from page 77 of PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, my fantasy WIP that I worked on during NaNoWriMo 2011 (synopsis here). I have resisted my inner perfectionist’s urge to tweak/edit/overhaul the heck out of it (’cause seeing excerpts in raw form is part of the fun), so be gentle. 😀

I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the waterskin touched my lips, and then I was guzzling down the clear liquid greedily, splashing the rest over my face. Flynne watched, a bemused expression on her face at my enthusiasm. “You’re going to have to freshen up before we reach shore. You’ve clearly spent far too much time among us.”

I returned her grin, her words filling me with a strange mix of pride and regret. I wasn’t ready to leave the Diomedea, but then again, when had anything happened to me when I was ready? My father had been taken long before his time; my home, brother, and very identity had been stripped in a single swoop, no warning involved. This voyage over the sea had seemed like the whole and sum of my world, and yet it was just a short break in a much longer, and much more scary, journey, an interim of sorts.

To continue the chain, I’m tagging the following authors. Go to it, friends!

Fiction Friday: Reflections of a Novel-Writing Sociologist

December 16, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 26 Comments

As I write this, I am almost through with the first draft of my MA thesis. It’s currently 66 pages long (about 23K, for those of you who think in word counts), and once I add the introduction, conclusion, and a few transitional paragraphs, I estimate it will clock in around 70-75 pages.

On the surface, academic and creative writing are a world apart. In academia, we build on the work of previous scholars. We draw heavily on the research that’s come before us, and try to fit ourselves within an established framework while still demonstrating how our projects stand out.

In creative writing, get to wield our imaginations to the best of our abilities. While we have to fit ourselves into the boundaries of a genre, our success depends on the uniqueness of our voices, our ability to create worlds and characters who are distinctive, fresh, and compelling.

As I struggle to reconcile my two selves together, I’ve found that these worlds might not be as incompatible as I’ve always believed. I begin creative and academic projects in similar ways: immersing myself in research, reading as much as I can, and mapping the field.

Although my thesis will probably never make for exciting bedtime reading (unless you’re thrilled by sociological discussions of etiquette and social inequality), reflecting on the writing process has led me to realize that some of the lessons I’ve learned from creative writing are applicable.

1. It all begins with a question.

Source: f-oxymoron via flickr

In creative writing, we constantly ask questions about our work, our characters, and our worlds constantly. Trying to answer those questions helps us to invent new tales or to jumpstart flagging ones, and so we find ourselves toying with ridiculous scenarios, just to see what will happen.

What if a horde of zombie chimpanzees crash-land a spaceship in the middle of a cornfield just as the protagonist and her on-again, off-again boyfriend are arguing?

For academic research, questions are just as powerful and pivotal. Here, it’s usually “why” and “how come?” that orient us. (Yes, academics were probably the most irritating toddlers on the face of the planet.)

My thesis is no different. It was born out of countless questions, including one that came to me as I was working on my senior undergraduate thesis:

Why has etiquette played such a large role in shaping wedding practices in the United States? If etiquette is as important as historians of the wedding suggest, why hasn’t anyone else studied it in-depth?

Some of my favorite fiction projects have started the same way, as ideas that have tumbled around in my head, not quite substantial enough to explore in-depth, but too shiny and promising to ignore completely.

Learning to question our work throughout the writing process, to view it with all the curiosity and excitement that motivates us at the start of a project, is one key to unlocking our creativity.

2. Long projects are long.

By this point in my academic career, I have mastered the art of ~~bullshitting~~ crafting a 10-15 page paper. I have a sense of how I need to organize my ideas, the number of extended excerpts I can mobilize, and the number of subsections I’ll need to plan. With longer forms of writing, however, all those rules go straight out the window.

Nothing is scarier than being faced with a mountain of words — or, even worse, with the blank Word document, the one that will eventually become a mountain of words, but is nothing more than a empty sheet of possibility. We’ve all felt that stab of panic as we stare at the blanking cursor, waiting for the words to flow, and so each word, each sentence, each paragraph feels like a tiny victory.

As I grapple with understanding the structure of the novel, I am also struggling to grasp the mechanics of long-form academic writing. Scholarly writing is much more straight-forward, at least on the surface. There are no plot points to figure out, no need to sort out character motivations and overarching themes. Academics are expected to tell and not show, to reveal the our results in the very first paragraph (this makes me sad, because sometimes I’d like there to be a big reveal — I toiled in the archives for days and weeks, and hunted for clues! At last, the meaning of etiquette books was revealed to me…).

My adventures with NaNoWriMo have taught me that while I benefit from outlines, I am a nonlinear, scene-by-scene sort of writer. I’ve penned the thesis in the same way: in odd bits and pieces scattered around Scrivener, culled from past seminar papers and conference talks. Those chunks of text are somehow cobbled together by a form of alchemy that I can only guess at, fitted together to form a seemingly coherent product.

My take-away from all of this? Write, no matter how short or silly or stupid the idea is. Scrawl as many memos and notes as possible, keep track of how ideas jump around and leap about and evolve. Eventually, some sort of structure will emerge to unite some of those pieces together.

Continue reading

Ghouls Galore: Vampire

October 31, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

Eeep, I can’t believe I forgot about the final week of Lady Antimony’s Ghouls Galore October flash fiction event! The word of the week is “borborygmus,” and the overall theme is Pick-Your-Own-Creature. I’ve chosen the vampire, for old times’ sake. Back in the day, The Vampire Diaries by L.S. Smith and Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause were my books of choice (both of them are better than Twilight, IMO), both inspirations for the mediocre vampire fiction I loved to write.

As a Halloween treat, I give you both flash fiction and poetry. The poem was originally written in 2000, one of those things I scribbled in math class when I was 13, a silent protest against learning algebraic equations. 😉 I’ve tweaked it a bit, however.

David A. Ludwig has written a lovely summary of the challenge, along with links to the other participants’ work, so be sure to swing by and check it out.

And as a final fun note, this is my 100th post! It totally snuck up on me, too. 😀

-oOo-

“Midnight Walker”

Blood:
Source of life for all,
elixir of the chosen
drink of the Damned — those more-than-mortals,
the living dead.

Forced to forever stalk the living,
chained to the night,
without rest, without peace
Midnight Walkers forever.

It was a small thing, really: a single globule of blood, no larger than a dewdrop and just as delicate. If Alaric hadn’t been starving, his veins parched and dry, it would’ve been easy enough to ignore. Restraint and willpower had always been his strengths, even before he was reborn. But then again, he had never been deprived of sustenance for so long. There was no way he could withstand such temptation.

That drop of blood was a siren’s song of lust and desire, flooding his mouth with saliva, sharpening his gleaming fangs. It gleamed in the flickering glow of the streetlamp, adorning the whore’s neck like the most precious ruby.

She’d been bitten already — a sloppy kiss from a drunkard, for her intoxicating bouquet was tainted by the acrid, burnt smell of whiskey. With his preternatural senses, he could hear the beating of her heart, the borborygmic trembling of her stomach; she was hungry as well, her face pinched and pale beneath a heavy coating of rouge. It mattered little. By the time Alaric was through, food — or lack thereof — would be the least of her worries.

The whore turned limpid eyes upon him, lips parted in a drawl of invitation, and Alaric’s hands shook as his slid the coin into her hand. A thrill of delight coursed down his spine as he followed her into the dank alley nearby, even as his conscience uttered one final whimper of protest.

He would hate himself come morning, when the alleys would be strewn with evidence of his excesses, but the salt-sweet elixir on his tongue drove away all regret.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy

Tag: fiction

Celebrating Valentine’s Day with ALL The Books

The Pygmalion Effect, or When Fictional Creations Steal Your Heart

Fiction Friday: Reflections of a Novel-Writing Sociologist

Ghouls Galore: Vampire

Lena Corazon

Personal Links

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Lena Corazon