Meticulously researched, expertly conceived, and beautifully written, Sappho Sings is a rich, poetic feast of a novel. Following the famous, and famously passionate, lady of Lesbos through her riches-to-rags-to-riches story, the novel chronicles Sappho's bitter disappointments, artistic and personal triumphs and, above all, her burning desire to be loved. more
My name is Psappha. [suh-fah] Men of Athens dubbed me “Sappho Masculo”. Perhaps they thought that saying I wrote like a man would flatter me. It didn’t. I am proud of who I am. I am Psappha; The Poetess; The Lesbian and I intend to be remembered.
I am not Lesbian, you say. Is it because I lived so long in Syracuse? Or, is it because in modern usage you think my Lesbian citizenship does not qualify me for the term? Is it because I had a husband? How does that matter? I am who I was born. A Lesbian; a poet.
Have you not heard of my Kerkolos? Dare you think I did not come to love him well? I may have married him because I had no choice but I learned to love him for himself. Had I not done so, I would be less than I am and my name would have died before me.
I am Psappha. I was born at Eresus on the isle of Lesbos. My husband came from Andros. A beautiful man he was. As lovely in his way as any of the delicate girls who flocked to me for lessons in music, dance and words; all that my humble gift could teach them. His was a different beauty than that of tender Gyrinna. Different but no less wonderful, no less pure. I was devastated when I lost him while our daughter was so young.
No true Lesbian can love a man, you insist. What can you know of another woman’s heart? Will you stand before me and my life’s blood, Gongyla when we meet on Olympus and say to me, “You are no true Lesbian”? Will you dare?
Love and a kind heart toward my spouse lessened not the ardor aroused in me when my glance fell upon electrum-haired Atthis; nor the sadness of our parting. Nor did it tarnish the glory that was my soul-shattering union with my perfect Amazon.
Often in my life Love, the limb-loosener enflamed my heart toward a velvet-curved woman. But, my love for them took nothing from my daughter’s father. He understood that I needed something more than ‘broidery to fill the months while he sailed the seas.
The gods are generous with their gift of love. They give us all we need and more. The love of a mother for her child. The love of a child for its mother. The love of a man or the love of a woman for a kindred soul. None are the same yet none is diminished by the existence of the others. Rather, each is magnified. Love transcends all earthly values. Its magic is that the more you give away, the more there is to give.
Remember when you decide what a person is or is not that spirit has no gender and love is a thing of sacred spirit. The married homophile you reject today will be some woman’s lover on the morrow. Why should she not be yours?
Here in south-west Florida, there’s a small man-made lake right behind our apartment. I love to sit on the balcony and watch the goings on.
At night there are lights in other apartments that make one wonder what’s going on inside. But at 5AM there’s only me, my coffee, my cats and golden spots reflected on the water from the street lights by the gate half an acre away.
This morning, there was rain so fine it barely made dents on the surface of the water. Here and there large circles shimmered as fish rose to capture skimmers. In the distance, soft lightning flashed across the horizon too distant to hear the rumble. An odd, thin necked, long bodied critter swam across the pond in the pre-dawn stillness; seen only in silhouette. I presumed it was a turtle out to rid the world of a few surplus bugs.
The sky brightened and a couple of dozen birds awoke to sing welcome to the sun. Pink clouds floated across the eastern sky. The odd critter turned out to be a pale gray duck trailed by seven ducklings. I had to smile as she herded them into the reeds below our balcony. The morning felt all warm and fuzzy as they played their duckling version of hide-and-seek. Then, with what seemed to be no signal they crowded around their mother and the little family swam away on a single long tight line. Moments later, I saw her lead them from the pond into the hedges at the end of another building.
At 6:55 sharp, the fountain in the pond came on to shoot water 40 feet straight up. A car horn honked elsewhere in the complex and I came inside to make my bed and wash last night’s supper dishes. My day had officially begun.
Excerpt from Sappho Sings:
“Oh,sweet Melpomymnia gentle-hearted muse of sorrow, why can't I cry? Where are your tears now, dear muse, tears that flowed so freely for a fool? I loved her more than gods allow and now I've driven her away. What bitter gall remains of the horror I bestowed upon her leaving. Such bitter webs deception weaves. My eyes are dry and barren. Grief and guilt have imprisoned my tears. My soul retches, but my eyes cannot spew it forth. Life still flowed warmly in her veins. She was loath to waste a moment of it.”
Beautifully written, the text of this book could be put to music. Fall back into ancient times and walk with Psappha through the marketplace. You will smell the aroma of the spices, the rotting fish, and sense everything around her.
Psappha's story starts out as one of a life of many losses and circumstances over which she has no control. Losing her father, mother, home, freedom, forced to leave her homeland, and travel beneath her status, Psapha maintains a strong fortitude. As she grows older and wiser she gains fame and power, but also suffers betrayals. She drifts through her life of friends and lovers and at the end I could only be reminded of the words of Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"
Sit outside on a beautiful day with a gentle breeze and read Sappho Sings.
Everyone communicates, and a lot of people write, but few people dare to call themselves "writers". If you feel like an impostor, take a deep breath and remind yourself of your unique purpose and how important it is. Or take on a fictional persona and write through that mask.
2. Conjure Your True Voice
If you're at a loss for words, try meeting a friend for tea and talking your way through the material, or even talking out loud to yourself. Your spoken words might not be publishable, but once you've got 'em down on paper, you can edit to your heart's content.
3. Write it as a Letter
Submitting written work can be scary--especially if it's going to be read by The Powers That Be. But you don't have to think about those Powers when you're writing; in fact, it's probably better not to pay them any mind until the last few editing stages, after you've already squeezed out every last idea and captured it on paper. So when you're still writing, why not imagine you're writing a letter telling your closest confidante about your project? Try starting your work "Dear ____", and you might tap into a fountain of lovely, loose conversational prose.
4. Detach Your Ego
If stage fright derives from fear--the fear that if the work fails, we fail--we need to disconnect ourselves from the work. When I play pool, I don't care if I win or lose, because I'm not A Pool Person--but beat me on the air hockey table and I'll be grumpy, because I'm invested in the game. Realize that people reading your work are just as self-centered and will most likely not draw any permanent conclusions about you from your work.
5. Plunge Into the Scary Parts
What are you afraid of? Spelling poorly? Weak transitions? Well, go ahead and deliberately spell every word incorrectly, write without transitions, don't use any punctuation--do everything you're not supposed to do, and have fun doing it! Draw caricatures of your writing demons, put the dreaded failure behind you, and move on.
6. Lower Your Standards
There's really no reason to worry about editors, teachers, critics, bosses, and what they think until the last stage of revising. Until that time, indulge yourself. Don't correct anything; write in slang; write 3 pages in 15 minutes; leave notes to yourself, like ADD DETAILS HERE or FIX THIS LATER, throughout your work--anything that makes it easier to write.
7. Sidestep What Blocks You
Don't let one part of your writing stump you for long. If it's bugging you, just skip it and move on to an easier, more appealing task. If the introduction isn't coming, jump right to paragraph two, or page 23. If you can't think of anything to say in one section, just skip merrily along to the next part and let your unconscious work on the hard stuff for a while.
8. Stop When You're On a Roll
When writing is a struggle, you'll naturally want to stop. But if you do, you're rewarding yourself for not writing. Try sticking with it--and then quit when you're on a roll, so that next time you'll be eager to return to the work. Or start writing when you know you have to do something else in 45 minutes--as soon as the pressure's off, as soon as you say "well, I know I won't get anything done in this little bit of time" you're free to let your creative juices flow. Waves of inspiration will come and go; the trick is scheduling your work to take full advantage of the tides.
A subject anyone could find exciting,
written in a voice that matters, &
a plot that keeps you spinning
all the way to the end.
(Hieraphant Publishing, San Antonio, TX USA)
The Gnostic Mystery is an intriguing tale that challenges the long-held beliefs of millions on all sides of the Middle East conflict.
I thought it unfortunate that the strong first paragraph is followed by some confusion as to whether this was to be a new meeting or reunion between protagonist Jack Stanton, and Professor Chloe Eisenberg. I did not feel that the flashback literary device worked well as an opening for this novel. Nevertheless, the technique caused no discomfort as the story progressed.
Although presented as fiction, The Gnostic Mystery reads as well documented fact complete with an extensive bibliography. Some readers will be shocked and confused by the concepts presented. The profoundly devout, may slam the book down mid-sentence or throw it at a wall. While others will devour every word with enthusiasm and appreciate it for the fine example of the Socratic Method that it is.
I recommend The Gnostic Mystery to those last without reservation, and I look forward to Devila's next.
Greek poetess, who lived on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is the most famous female poet of antiquity, but only incomplete poems and fragments remain of her work. Most of Sappho's love poems were addressed to women. The Greek philosopher Plato called her the tenth Muse. more
A: It depends.
This is almost like me asking you if I need a realtor to sell my house. Okay, in light of the current housing market, that might not be a very nice parallel. But then again, a quick look at the publishing industry might make that comparison even more apt. But back to the question and topic. 
In the "old days" of publishing, let's say prior to 1990, there was a common publishing phrase that referred to an unsolicited manuscript that was sent to a publisher as something that "came in over the transom." (A transom is literally a hinged window over a door. Think of the book return slot at a library.) In other words, a writer sent in his or her manuscript to a mail drop, which then ended up in one of several 4-foot high stacks in a junior editor's office, and which after six or seven months of collecting dust was either rejected with a form letter - or voila, it got discovered and published. One way many publishing companies handled submissions that came over the transom was to hire college interns to sift through hundreds or thousands of manuscripts over summer break and separate the winners from the losers. More
I lost him long ago although it was thirty-three years later that he died. He was the sweetest of my sons until his baby brother came. A quiet child with soft blue eyes as gentle as his soul. Those eyes, his glance could melt any mother's heart no matter what mischief he got into and he got into plenty though nothing beyond naughty. At least nothing I caught him at.
All that ended when his first mistress entered his life. Her name was marajuana followed closely by cocaine and my precious boy was gone. Lost to me forever although he never ventured very far geographically. A few blocks, a few miles - infinity - unreachable - never mine again although I always knew he loved me in his own peculiar way.
He shook off the worst of the drugs I think, eventually, but my sweet, gentle boy was gone. Gone from all of us who loved him though we saw him off and on. And then, nineteen days after he turned fifty he was killed but for me my precious Johnny'd been long gone.
While the internet has savaged the newspaper and recorded industries, it has had much less impact on the book business. But in 2009, one big thing and many little things in new media have conspired to bring traditional publishing to boiling point. Write... Read more at Independent »
As it is with everything else in this world, there are pros and cons - a double-edged sword to everything one uses. Here are some ups and downs in using Voice Recognition Software.
ISBN:978-1-944-88053-9 (Penguin Ireland, 2008)
An epic biography of figures famous and familiar woven into an autobiography of a mother written with "corrective" footnotes added by a disrespectful daughter. Wonderful in its reality, A Dance in Time is chock full of characters you'll love and some you'll hate but not a single one who is not vibrant and alive.
But [then] Dolores dies.
I found the opening scene astonishing due to real life reflection complete with my [used to be] strawberry hair and my daughter's maddening "talk to the hand" attitude. The book never read like fiction. It held me fully in it from start to startling finish.
Which is it? Toward or towards? Both are considered correct. They are often considered interchangeable, but are they? According to the pundits, toward is more common in American English whereas towards is preferred in Britain.
1also to·wards
Personally, towards makes me cringe. To me, it seems too weird. How do y'all feel about it?
Sometimes the only way to liven your prose is to hit the delete key hard and often.
The first step is to highlight all of your PET phrases and paragraphs. You know which ones. The ones that made you pause and thing, "Wow, what a great writer I am. You may need to delete them. Not because they are not good, but because they are often beautifully written author intrusion.
How many characters do you have? How many do you need? How many wonderful scenes can you give to a single character to eliminate two or three "walk-ons"? Too many characters, no matter how fascinating and well-defined, can bog down your story. Save some of them for another book. You do plan to write more, don't you?
Although an excellent tool for description and dialog, adverbs in exposition are the death of active fiction. Shakespeare might have said, "Out damned adverb," before rewriting it to "Out damned spot." Before I cut over 40,000 words from my book in progress, I used the following sentences. #1 In the kitchen, Melissa giggled softly. Revised, it reads - Melissa giggled. #2 "Daylight then," Kathin conceded firmly. "You can finish it after your morning chores are done. Now, get upstairs." I think it is obvious from the dialog that she was being firm. Or, at least I thought so after I forced myself to delete over 4000 adverbs from the manuscript.
Deleting hurts. I know. Deleting words and sentences you've slaved over is excruciating, but if I can do it so can you. Whether I ended up with better novels will be decided by you, the reading public. Meanwhile, I have concise drafts that interest the dickens out of me.
I have found that whenever I try to discuss historical accuracy in historical
fiction, especially in historical romance, the same responses pop up. So
much so that I'm getting bored with them and tempted to wave my hand, sigh
and say "Whatever."
1. "It's only fiction." That response trashes the nature of the novel
and the nature of fiction. It tends to show that the responder is either
parroting the response he or she has heard elsewhere or really doesn't
know what the novel is, or what fiction means. The novel is a highly
artificial construct made of several recognizable features. I think
every author should at least know that, or come to realize it as s/he
writes. But sometimes they don't. Fiction, similarly, doesn't mean you
can make up what the hell you like, it is again a recognizable construct
and bounded by understandings. If a writer has something they want to
bring to that, and the example that springs to mind is Truman Capote's
"In Cold Blood," then they are at liberty to do so, but it's nice if,
like Capote, they know exactly what they're doing and why they want to
do it. Even better if they can explain to a room full of academics, who,
in this case, are the gatekeepers.
2. "The story comes first." Hell, yes, of course it does, but that isn't
a reason to traduce history in the telling of it. Just incorporate the
real stuff or call it fantasy. There are some superb fantasies that take
a medieval world as its base ("Lord of the Rings" anyone?) but also
introduce other ideas. Just don't call it history if it isn't.
Alternative history, like "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" is also an
exciting way to go.
3. "The readers don't care." Demonstrably, they do. You can sell
humongous numbers of historical romance that have very little relation
to the era they claim to be set in and get away with it, but I firmly
believe that was one of the factors that led to the collapse of the
historical romance genre a few years ago. The readers moved away from
the paper-thin walls towards the paranormal romances, many of which take
the same construct (putting made-up characters into a recognizable
world) and make it more real seeming.
4. "You can have a success without fussing too much about the history."
Yes, you can, but that, IMO, is short-changing the readers. Even if they
don't know, many can sense it's not right because the setting isn't
fully depicted, or they sense something about a character. And you're
limiting your readership. Publishers think in the relatively short-term,
they don't care if a writer only has a few years' success and then fades
away because there are plenty more waiting. And if you have respect for
yourself and your integrity as a writer, then you'll take more care.
5. "I want to read a novel, not a text book." As if making lists and
over-description aren't symptomatic of bad writing in any genre. This
one exasperates me, because no good historical fiction writer would
dream of overwhelming the reader with facts and details. When you write
a novel, it's like the tip of the iceberg. You put in what you need to
put in, but you need the confidence and the knowledge to put it in and
not to insert the wrong thing. You need to know all these facts if you
want to create a living, breathing character in a vivid background. Your
reader doesn't. I don't read SF romance for the details of how a
spaceship works, I read it for the story, but if the writer has an
inconsistent world, I won't bother reading further.
*Lynne Connolly, author of Dark and Provocative Romance
A murder... A lord's desire...and her quiet, respectable life is gone
forever.**
Tantalizing Secrets from Samhain Publishing
<http://samhainpubli shing.com/ romance/tantaliz ing-secrets>
*_*http://www.lynnecon nolly.com/ TantalizingSecre ts.html*_
Today I was challenged by my friend Marvin Wilson, author of I Romanced the Stone to list my top 25 Literary influences as he did this morning on his Free Spirit blog. So, here goes, Y'all. From last to first.
25. Margaret Atwood
24. Sarah Waters
23. Radclyffe Hall
22. Sylvia Plath
21. Patricia Matthews
20. Kathleen Windsor
19. Gustave Flaubert
18. Anya Seton
17. Marion Zimmer Bradley
16. Betty Smith
15. Leon Uris
14. Anita Diamant
13. Maya Angelou
12. Alix Olson
11. Anne McCaffrey
10. Robert Jordon
09. Margaret Walker
08. Rita Mae Brown
07. John Steinbeck
06. Frank G. Slaughter
05. Samuel Schellabarger
04. Lawrence Schoonover
03. Pearl Buck
02. Mary Renault
01. Sappho
Your turn.
Writing a publishable manuscript is akin to building a successful commercial building. Both require good, aesthetically pleasing or satisfying design, sound structure, and quality materials that are well crafted to create settings suitable for the people who will use them and attractive to those who visit. Both must be well planned—no rooms without doorways or stairways to nowhere, with utilities conveniently placed. Signage, lighting and transit patterns must be clear enough to help folks get where they are going without stumbling. And both need inspectors to ensure everything is in place before they are ready to present to the market.
Too often writers let the analogy stop there. Writing a manuscript and "hoping for the best"—not knowing the intended readership or a way of getting it to market—is like a real estate developer building a commercial building without having leases signed and tenants ready to move in. Both are costly mistakes. When they finally find agents willing to represent them, they will be at the mercy of some pretty unattractive deals just to move a piece of property that has cost them to create.
You’ve heard the phrase “learn the craft” and assumed it meant learning the mechanics of writing—like the trade work on our commercial building. But successful writers who are more than “one-hit wonders”—the Micheners and the Pattersons—think more like the building’s developers. Before they build, successful developers study the neighborhood, learn which tenants will attract the widest range of visitors and bring in the most revenue, learn who the agents are who specialize in those tenants, keep tabs on the hottest architects, maybe assemble a focus group to review the design, and learn where to get the best tradesmen at the best cost, all ahead of time. They read trade magazines, network, and regularly update voluminous address books, so that by the time they conceive the next project, they know whom to approach for money or talent and what their “hot buttons” are.
Most importantly, while developers may favor certain projects over others, THEY DO NOT CONFUSE THEM WITH THEIR CHILDREN. If inspections indicate needed changes in the project, they sign the change orders. In short, they deal with it as a business.
I’m assuming here that you actually want to make money with your writing. If you’re a traditional type and don’t mind waiting a long time—a year or so in many cases—to see yourself in print, camp out in the library and check out the annual Writer’s Market series, which will tell you who is buying and publishing what, what their requirements are, and how much and when they pay—in short, how “the deal” is structured. Understand that payment upon publication is typical for magazines, and since it may take a magazine publisher three or four months to evaluate your work as a first-timer and another six after acceptance before the work hits the news stands, it can be a long time before you see any money from it.
For books, the situation is worse, especially if you don’t have an agent. Sorry. The Writer’s Market series also includes a Guide to Literary Agents, and read all instructions carefully. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO BANG A SQUARE PEG INTO A ROUND HOLE. IT ONLY "PISSES OFF" THE HOLE.
If you’re more adventurous, consider exploring alternative routes to publication, especially when you’re starting out—blogging, self-publishing, print-on-demand, graphic novels, even distributing stories by cell phone. Check out online newsletters (such as Your Publishing Poynters Newsletter http://parapub.com/sites/para/, a freebie) to keep up with changes in the industry. In short, do your homework, and don’t be taken by surprise. Know that you WILL make mistakes, you WILL fail, and you WILL be taken advantage of at some point by someone. It’s part of the learning process. Just don’t let it shut you down.
That was the question posted recently to a writers' email group.
I think a better question might be "Is it ever too late to stop learning to write?" We learn by writing. We learn by reading. And, lately I've discovered that I learn most by listening. My son downloaded hundreds of audio books, converted them to MP3s and gifted my [so far] with 30 DVDs full.
After listening my way through the entire Narnia series, ALL of the McCaffrey Pern novels and ALL of Robert Jordon's Wheel of Time I feel much more "ready" to work on my third novel and beyond.
My editor/friend has tried for years to get me to re-read Jordon for help with some of my style issues but after half a lifetime doing research and writing I find myself unable to read anything without mental editing. Listening disallows this and makes novel story structure and novel styles much more evident.
To paraphrase Rita Mae Brown, writing is perhaps the only field of endeavor in which a woman cannot be accused of "sleeping her way to the top." We live or die on the page or should I say we live and die FOR the page. Writing is age at its most irrelevant.
Incidentally, for the record I was 33 when I began my first novel and 68 when a truncated version of the umpteenth draft was published. I began my second novel at 46 and published it at age 70. "My" [and my editor's] preferred version of the first novel was published last year around the time of my 76th birthday. Now, as I contemplate my lucky double 7s year I'm anxious to get back to work on my 3 or 4 book historical epic. Age? Hurrumph! Who cares as long as we're living and learning?
Write on!
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