Syzygy the Novel

Syzygy (pronounced sizz-uh-gee) the novel by the charming Amanda Borenstadt is published and available for download at Smashwords, or for the Kindle at Amazon. It would probably fall in the category now called, 'urban fantasy' but it has strong romance elements too.

From Amanda: It's the story of Finn Wilde, a super strong mobster who can leap tall buildings as well as hack computer networks, falls in love with Bea Jones, the girl he's sent to kidnap. She's immune to the virus that infects Finn's race, therefore her blood holds the key to the antiserum which can cure him of the bloodthirsty madness that overtakes him for twelve hours each month.

The story is told by a patient at a mental hospital. His narration is sometimes dark and sometimes humorous. Little by little we learn clues about his identity as he grows closer to the widow he befriends in the hospital.

Amanda was kind enough to do a little blog interview for me to tell us a little about her book and her writing in general. She also has created some other fun projects online that go along with the Syzygy novel.

I highly recommend checking out this novel. A mere $1.99 will get you many hours of entertainment that you will not regret one bit. Amanda also has a short story up at Smashwords for free if you've never tried an e-book before and want to see how the whole process works first. I'm fairly new to the e-book experience myself, so it was great to download and read these. Now I feel like a pro.

Now, onto the interview!

How long have you been writing? Both in general, and how long did you
work on Syzygy?

Well, I wrote my first story when I was in sixth grade and decided to be a writer. Then, in seventh grade I realized I would never be as good as Ray Bradbury and gave up the dream.

Cut to a giga-billion years later- An artist friend of mine read our kids a book by Peter Reynolds called *Ish* which basically gave the message that things you draw don't have to look exactly like they really are. It's tree-ish. Car-ish. Etc. So, I grew the courage to start drawing.

I drew little comics of my teenage daughter going on adventures with Sirius Black and Doctor Who and other little cartoons. My stories got more complicated than I could draw, so I started writing full-blown fan fiction. My husband challenged me to write something I could legitimately publish for money. So, I started searching for my novel. I found it on a BART train on the way to San Francisco in 2007.

I saw this scruffy guy standing by the train door looking all moody and slouchy. I thought, "He sure is trying to look tough." Then I thought, "What if he really is tough and has good reason to be moody? What if he has a fantastic back-story?" So, Finn was born.

Did you have the story planned out ahead of time, or did it evolve as you wrote?

For sure it evolved as I wrote. The narration completely changed. Ugh! I don't want to give away any spoilers, but just know that the whole mental hospital part was not in the original plan. And I didn't even know how it was going to end until I was well into the project.

When I learned the end of the story, I went back and changed how I narrated and added the mental hospital scenes. Then the patient had to go through the whole novel with me and infuse his voice into the narration. It's there, very subtly at first and grows as time goes on.

I definably saw little bits of your personality in the book, like your fun, quirky sense of humor, but not focused in one character. Do you identify with any one character more? Or does one feel more similar to your own personality?

Thanks. I love quirky! No, I don't think I identify with any particular character personality-wise. I can identify with Lucas because he's trying so hard to protect and guide the young people. But our personalities are very different. He's wiser, has more patience, and is a lot braver than I am. He's also perhaps the least quirky of the bunch. Some of his phrases came from my husband's mouth. Like when he answers "Yes," to Bea's question, which wasn't a "yes" or "no" question. My husband can be maddening like that.

Did you intentionally avoid creating a character that shared too much of your personality?

No, I didn't intentionally avoid creating a character with my personality. What a fascinating question. I guess I felt I was behind the camera while writing rather than in front of it. I incorporated bits of people I know and situations I saw. Even the characters who began loosely based on a person didn't stay that way. They grew their own uniqueness.

Do you have plans for a sequel, or for any other stories featuring the same characters? (Hint, hint - I think Uncle Lucas has some fun stories to tell.)

Yes, he sure would. And Collin too! I have a vision of a sequel in that I know what happens to every character, but I don't know if I'll write it. We'll see if the world demands a Syzygy Two. Then, maybe a Syzygy III in 3D.

I've written a handful of short stories set before the time of the novel. You can see one on my blog. Those characters just won't leave me be. Hey, if it gets popular maybe people will write Syzygy fan fiction.

Can you tell us about any other writing projects you're working on now?

Besides the occasional short story, I'm working on a zombie-apocalypse novel, because, as you know, the world is short of those. It's a romance called, *The Last Guy on Earth Who's Not a Zombie*. And my niece, Jasmine, and I may collaborate on a graphic novel called *Twelve Keys*, set in a California transformed by mysterious forces that bring modern day, the gold-mining era, and the magical realm together. This is the same niece who created the cover and promotional artwork for Syzygy. We'll see how it goes. We've never published anything like this before. I downloaded the guidelines from Dark Horse Comics, so I figure we're experts, right?

I've heard all kinds of opinions about traditional publishing vs. e-publishing, and it seems like something that will continue to change for awhile. How has the process of publishing an e-book been for you? Now that you've gone through it, would you do it the same way if you had it to do over?

No, I would run the other direction and slam headlong into the nearest wall. I'm kidding. Smashwords- well, Mark Coker at Smashwords, made it as painless as possible. I ran into snags because of technical stuff, but really, it's not very difficult and I'm a technical idiot. There is a lot of waiting involved- waiting for files to upload and be distributed, but I guess that's the case in regular publishing too.

I'm just grateful that Smashwords and Amazon make it so easy to epublish. Some go a more tech-savvy route and create actual apps for Apple and all of that, but I am happy with the shortcut way.

I love your YouTube channel for Finn. The search especially is so well tied into the Syzygy novel. It may be more fun for those who have already read the book than a promotional tool though. Can you tell us a little about how you came to make these fun videos?

Oh, the Search Stories? Yeah, they are fun. I stumbled on one somebody had done for Ron Weasley preparing for going off to Hogwarts and it was hecka funny. I saw at the end that YouTube had a program where you can simply plug in your search and pick music. It creates the video for you.

My character, Finn, does in fact conduct on-line searches to find Bea, so naturally I had to make a Search Story for him. The one I did for Sam was just a whim. I included some details from the novel as well as some things I knew about him that never made it into the book.

Aside from Sygyzy, where can folks read more of your work?

I have a cute werewolf story at "Lightning Flash Magazine," a vampire story at "Shadowcast Audio Anthology," and there's a freebie urban fantasy on my Smashwords page. For the full list of my stories with links you can go to the sidebar of my blog http://afortnightofmustard.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for giving us this great interview!

Thank you. This has been so much fun! Interview me any time. :)

Peanut Butter and Pickles and Squirrels

We went camping (in a cabin with a bathroom, so not too rough) last weekend. After lunch one day we left our jar of peanut butter out on the table. I didn't think about it since some other members or our group were still eating when I left to take a kiddo to the potty, and everyone was leaving when we came out, I didn't think to check if they cleaned up (I'm a trusting soul that way).

So everyone knows what happens to food left out at a campsite, right? But since I thought it was packed away, I didn't look for it later.

Fast forward to the following morning.

The kids were playing with a ball that fell down into a small ravine that ran next to our picnic tables. Auntie bravely trekked down the slope to retrieve the ball, and said, "Hey Kara, your peanut butter is down here!" So I climbed down there too. We'd seen squirrels watching us during mealtimes from the ravine, and from the looks of the jar I got back, that's who made off with the peanut butter. Which is pretty impressive since the jar probably weighed as much as the squirrel.

Looks like they were frustrated by the jar though, and eventually gave up. There were a couple of small scratches on the bottom of the jar, but nothing like what you see here on the lid. That makes me wonder - were these squirrels (who live at a campsite and are no strangers to human food containers) familiar enough with peanut butter jars to know that they could get in through the lid, or did the lid end just smell better? Because it occurs to me that if they chewed at the bottom as much as they chewed at the lid, they probably could have made it through the much thinner plastic on that part of the jar. But they didn't. Silly squirrels.

Oh, and the pickles. . . Well, Grandma made a comment (when she went into the ravine after the ball on a separate occasion) about all the weed prickles that got stuck in her socks. There were all sorts of burs, spores, and foxtails down there. My littlest spent some time thereafter concerned about getting pickles (that's how she said it) in her own socks, and had to examine everyone's feet frequently in constant worry, lest the pickles attack someone else. Gotta watch out for those darn pickles.

What I'm Up To

So I keep thinking about ideas for blog posts that I never actually write. Trying to remedy that little problem and get into a better schedule. To begin with I'm just going to do a little roundup of where I'm at on my various projects I've talked about on the bog so far.

* I haven't done anything more with the remaining silk from our silkworms. I didn't have enough of it done in time for the county fair, and I'm still undecided about what exactly I want to do with it. I ended up with maybe half a dozen or so cocoons that never hatched, so I want to try reeling those in the more traditional way, but probably not right away. Have a lot of other stuff on my plate right now.

* I finished an approximately 7000 word short story, and am in the process of editing it. I'm excited because it's the first fiction project I've finished that's more than 100 words in a really, REALLY long time. Yea!

* After our trip earlier in the summer, I never got back into working on The Artist's Way. I've done a little journaling, but really, I should try to do that more regularly too. Or maybe not since I used what used to be journaling time for working on my story. Humm. . .

* I'm inspired by my the blog of my favorite amigurumi designer (If you either don't know what that is or don't have a favorite, go look - all kinds of cuteness and fun.) I'm going to start sharing a little of my fitness journey. Don't worry, I'm thinking just once a month saying a little something about how my exercise and weight are doing. Hopefully this will keep me paying attention (I'm distractable if you couldn't tell.) Also by keeping it to only once a month I want to avoid obsessively weighing several times a day and the kind of OCD crap I'm prone to. Generally I have a tendency to all sorts of unhealthy habits on both ends of the dieting/exercising spectrum when I think no one will notice. Maybe if I pretend people are watching, I can keep myself more moderate and honest.

* The self-led writing class is plodding along. Mostly reading so far, although I did join the Internet Writing Workshop; I haven't really participated yet. The format isn't instinctual to me, and there's a lot of messages to get through, so that's a learning curve. I need to give myself an assignment I think.

* I've gotten the nicest and most encouraging rejections for two flash fiction pieces I sent out awhile back and I was torn about reworking them (as the editors encouraged me to do) or just send to other markets. So they've just been sitting here. I think I've decided on sending them out for another round. I just can't think of anything more to do with them. They say all I'm really interested in saying, and I think if I try to expand they'll just ramble. If they don't find a home soon, you'll see them here!

* I'm making an I-spy quilt for my littlest. Seems kinda a shame to make a simple square quilt with my snazy new machine, but I have a plan for a little wall hanging that maybe I can get fancy on next.

Now, time to do dishes.

Making My Own Writing Class

I was at the bookstore shopping for a gift, but because I can't help myself, I also visited the writing advice book section. I've been hesitant to sign up for a writing class because I don't really have the time to get to one (unless my kids could come with me - ha!) and I don't want to spend the money. I've looked at a few online classes, but about a year and a half ago I took an online writing class and, frankly, it was a waste of my time and money. I had books at home that gave me the same information. What I had hoped the class would give me that a book could not was feedback about my writing. At best I got "This is fine." or "Good work." Not what I'd needed.

So there I am looking at writing books, thinking that a few of these will probably tell me what I need to know to move to the next level in my writing. A good friend at A Fortnight of Mustard told me about an online critique group she likes. So there's some feedback for me. Lastly, I've redoubled my efforts to write every day. I've let my journaling slide a little in this effort, but I feel okay about that. If I've had the kind of day where I can only squeeze in 20 min of writing time, I'd rather work on an article or a story that I'm excited about than a journal entry.

That's my plan. Read books. Join a writing critique group. Write more.

I guess time will tell if my plan will work in helping me become a better (and more confident) writer. I'd love to hear how other writers handle their own continuing education, or if you think there's something I should add to my plan.

What the Silkmoths and I are up to. . .

A few dozen of the silkmoths are still wandering around their box, done laying eggs, wondering what to do with the rest of their lives. I can sympathize a little. Most have passed on, and around 15 cocoons still haven't hatched yet. Is hatched the right word? It feels like the right word, but it's not quite the same as an egg. The cocoon has hatched: the silkmoth has emerged. That's the terminology that sounds good to me.

Anyhow, of the cocoons that haven't hatched yet, 4 of them look like bad cocoons to me, and I'm suspicious that they may not ever do anything. By 'bad' I mean, they don't look like the other cocoons: they're shaped strange, or feel soft instead of hard, and then there's that one that is see through as it was never completed.

I'm not really sure how long to wait on these last cocoons before deciding that the moths will never emerge from them, but I suppose there's no downside to waiting it out a little longer. After a nice long wait, if there are still several unhatched cocoons, I may try the silk reeling method used when the cocoons are stifled (that's the nice way of saying the larva is killed.) Once I'm sure no moth will ever come out, I'll give that method a try, but not just yet. So many of the caterpillars started spinning late, I feel better giving them a little more time.

In my research about silkmoth lifespan, I found two estimates: 3 to 5 days, and up to a week. From our little group, I'd agree more with the second. From the time our first silkmoths began emerging from their cocoons, to the first dead moth I found, it was a week at the very least. I sort of expected them to not last more then a day or so after egg laying, but they've all hung around quite awhile. I'm not real happy with the box I'm housing them in. They've kinda beaten themselves up flapping around and trying to hook up into pairs. Wormspit.com recommends separating them into pairs, then isolating the pairs and that's what I'm going to do next year. Hopefully they'll not bang themselves up so much that way, and the eggs should be easier to clean up.

That's what the silkmoths are up to, as for me, I've started a new short story. I felt a little guilty about it since I still haven't worked much on my novel, but I got an idea that I was excited about. I'm doing way more writing on it than I was on my novel, so it's hard to argue with progress. I'm toying with the idea of taking a writing class, probably online, but trying to decide what type of class I'd like the best (and when I'm going to fit it into my schedule).

My sewing machine is sitting covered, and hasn't seen the light in months, although I have almost as many projects I want to sew as I have story ideas. Last month I thought that when summer came, I'd have all this free time to do my writing and sewing. Why isn't that working out?

I'm Learning To Handspin Silk

I really goofed up.

Here I was, with a bunch of hatched silk cocoons. I'd found good instructions for cleaning and de-gumming the cocoons, and was excited to try spinning the silk. I treated the silk like wool, and carded it in preparation for spinning.

Don't do that.

It was clear to me right away as I was carding the silk that something wasn't right. When I spun, the results were lumpy, irregular and just not pretty. So I consulted my good friend Google (as I probably should have done in the first place.)

Wormspit.com came to my rescue again, with the best instructions I've found for preparing hatched silk moth cocoons for hand-spinning. Another nice resource when it comes to actually spinning the silk is this article on Knitty.

You can see in my photo, the yarn on the right was my first attempt to spin the silk, and to the left was my second try, after my research. Probably still not the best silk spinning ever, but a huge improvement, if I do say so myself!

Silkworms, Day 56 - Silkmoths!

There she is! (At least I think it's a she from the books. . .) I woke up this morning and found this little moth sitting in the cocoon box. So cute! But a lot smaller than I thought she'd be. Most of the photos are so zoomed in and blown up, I thought she'd be bigger.

I looked up about that red liquid you can see in the foreground. Silkmoth pee. She also squirted some sort of tan liquid on me when I picked her up to move her off the cocoon and onto a paper roll. Don't know if that was more pee, or the pheromones I've read about, but it sure came out in a violent jet!

I've decided this these are the biggest and smallest cocoons in our set. I'm still amazed with how different they are in size, but almost all the others are just a little smaller than the big one. These are really the unusual ones.

As I was searching for the big and small cocoons, a second moth emerged. Here you can compare how they look fresh out of the cocoon, with their little smooshed, wet wings, compared to the one that had been out for hours already.

As a sort of sad follow up to the last silkworm post, one of those two straggler caterpillars died later that day. The other finally started spinning his cocoon, but didn't complete it. I suspect he's dead inside the partial cocoon he started, but I haven't been motivated to investigate inside it to make sure.

And Then There Were Two: Silkworms, Day 51

When the silkworm eggs started hatching, they all hatched together. Within 24 hours of each other anyway. I'd made the mistaken assumption that they would all spin their cocoons at about the same time as well. The first spinners started on May 12th, at 38 days old. Four started spinning that morning, by the time I went to bed, about 12 or so were working away at their cocoons. And now, 13 days later, 2 are sill hanging around. Kinda eating, kinda sitting. I'm a little worried about them really. I don't know if they're not eating much because there s something wrong with them, or if it's because there are only 2 of them, so it just seems like they aren't eating much (compared to trying to feed 180 caterpillars a few weeks ago.) Either way, I think they're in trouble. They're either unwell, or just fine, but still going to spin and thus emerge from their cocoons two weeks after most of their buddies. Not good for their mating prospects methinks. Then again, if the emerge the way they spun, then a few new ones should come along each day. Maybe it won't be so bad for them after all. Time will tell.

I worry I may have made another mistake as well. To make more spinning space, I removed some cocoons as they looked finished and put them into a box. I'd seen pictures of cocoons collected like this, so thought it was fine to do. Then as I thought about it, most of these places also kill the larva inside. I'm not going to do that. I hope disturbing and moving the cocoons won't have any ill affects to their metamorphosis and ability to emerge. Again, I suppose time will tell.

I'd also read that if the caterpillars were too small they would be unable to spin at all, and would just turn brown and die. Thankfully, our smaller silkworms just spun smaller cocoons. Cute, huh?