If you listen to all the doom criers 2012 is supposed to be the end of time. I’m taking the optimistic view that life as we know will continue by putting my writing goals out there for all to see. 

• Publish Ravening: I stopped working on my novel when I took on a nonfiction project. Ravening will be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords in June 2012.
• Complete 2nd Novel: I’m nervous about this one, but if I keep to my schedule. I should be able to get through a first and second draft.

• Weekly Blog Posts: that’s a tough one. I know, that’s pretty ambitious for someone who struggles with once a month. Aim high I always say.
• Publish 101 Acting Questions, Answered!: That’s my non-fiction book project. It’s in the second draft stage now and I can see the end in sight.
• The Knitter’s Life List Project: I got the book, The Knitter’s Life List, by Gwen W. Steege, for Christmas. The book is a wonderful collection of suggestions of skills knitters can acquire over a lifetime of knitting compiled in one place. Ms. Steege’s lists inspired me so much that I’m going to do one item each week of the year. I’ll really build my knitting skills and have a lot of fun along the way.
• Publish 12 Short Stories: I didn’t succeed at this goal last year. I’m going to try it again. Last year I planned on getting 6 stories out because I started late and I actually did 2. I think I’m a little better organized for task this year. I’m ready in 2012.
• Start a Website: I’m really excited about getting a website going I’m working on ideas for my content already. The site will be part of the foundation of my platform.
• Enter 2 Writing Competitions: Contest season is gearing up and I’m looking to find two competitions that are appropriate for what I write. More platform building for me.
• Attend 1 Local Writer’s Conference: I want to meet my peers and introduce myself to the writing community.

 

That’s my plan for 2012. I'd love to hear about your plans for 2012. Cheers!

Our Mysterious Archipelago--New York City

                  It always seems funny to me that New Yorkers don’t see themselves as islanders. When in reality, except for Bronx residents, most people who live in the five boroughs live on islands. New York city is part of an archipelago that contains hundreds of islands, some very small, most uninhabited.

Each Island has it’s own unique history. Last year I was inspired by Gardener’s Island, owned by the same family for the last 450 years, the island a largely undeveloped private estate ruled by what may be the United States’ only titled family, the Lyons. The head of the family actually bears the title “Lord of the Manor.” How cool is that?

The island’s unique history inspired the setting of my shape shifter stories. For me, shape shifting predator’s need room to roam. Besides, I wanted my shifters to build their own society and live by their own rules. They wouldn’t be able to do that while still maintaining a human masquerade in a city or even a small town living side by side with humans.

Last week I learned about Execution Rocks Island, with a name like that how could I resist digging a little deeper? This eerie little island in Long Island Sound is home to Execution Rocks Lighthouse and a couple of grisly tales. According to local legend, British soldiers may have moved executions to this island to avoid further inflaming the populace. They were said to have chained the condemned to the rocks and let the tide drown them, even going so far as to leave the bodies so that the next batch of unfortunates could see their fate before it was their turn. A more likely story is that the rocks and nearby reef were a shipping hazard and “executed” a number of ships?

There’s even a serial killer associated with Execution Rocks Island. In 1928, Carl Panzram, admitted to having killed 21 people, although more victims were attributed to his killing spree. He used the island as a dumping ground.

Fictional Lowell Island is nestled among the many islands dotted around Long Island sound. I think there might be several preternatural communities hidden in the reaches of Long Island Sound.

NY Comic Con 2011-Get Your Geek On!

Comic Con, four days of intense geekery, in other words—heaven. First, the haul I got a gorgeous feathered hair clip from Rock Love Jewelry. 

I"m pretty flamboyant, but even I wouldn't wear this to the office. I have a party coming up at the end of the week, I might debut it then.


The first thing I actually bought was The World’s Greatest Search and Discover Poster, a 3 foot by 6 foot feast for the eyes and imagination. WGSD is like the ultimate “Where’s Waldo” type puzzle there are dozens of items to find hidden in hundreds of images.

Ostensibly, I got it for my niece to play with when she visits, but I’m already planning to hang it in my writing space for those times when I need a little distraction. My two-year-old nice, came over last week and I broke out the poster. Searching for the items she picked in The World's Greatest Search and Discover Poster held her attention for a good 10 minutes. That's like an hour for a two-year-old. 

The best con swag I got was the 21, yep 21, free books I collected from publisher’s row. The major publishing houses all had booths and part of the attraction was hourly signings and book giveaways. Thanks big six, my reading list is full three months or so. I can’t wait to dive in.

The book haul:

• Pariah, Bob Fingerman
• Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson
• Under the Never Sky, Veronica Rossi
• Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi
• Gossip Girl Psycho Killer, Cecily Von Ziegesar
• Awakenings, Edward Lazellari
• The Iron Hunt, Marjorie M. Liu
• Shadow Ops: Control Point, Myke Cole
• Across The Universe, Beth Revis
• All Men of Genius, Lev AC Rosen
• Halo Evolutions Essential Tales of the Halo Universe Vol 1
• Into the Storm, Taylor Anderson
• Planet Tad, Tim Carvell
• The Lost Fleet Dauntless, Jack Campbell
• Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
• The Warded Man, Peter V. Brett
• Working Stiff, Rachel Caine
• The Demon Lover, Juliet Dark
• Cry Wolf, Patricia Briggs
• Lady Lazarus, Michele Lang
• Ripper, Stefan Petrucha

On the work side, I handed out flyers about Spirit Wolf to let people know it’s out there and let them know that Ravening, the novel that continues the story is coming soon. I gave out about 340 of them myself. I had my sister and a couple of costumed adventurers, I met in the line, helping me at various times to give out the other 500 plus. I was nervous at first, but after a while engaging the people became a game. I never knew who would stop and take one of my flyers. I can’t wait to see how many of them take the next step and download Spirit Wolf.

I learned some lessons about working conventions and doing my marketing in general. I had a lot of lead time to get ready for Comic Con. I didn’t use it to my best advantage. I procrastinated, so of course I ended up working down to the wire.

Also, it turned out that I was not able to offer Spirit Wolf for free on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I didn’t know that until I’d printed my free download cards. I scrapped the cards. Stressed, but undaunted I designed a flyer and had it reproduced just before leaving for Comic Con.

Despite, my rocky start, being in the creative soup that was NY Comic Con was exciting, inspiring, and quirky as hell. Artists are out there making everything imaginable, and don’t sleep on the fans. Folks use a writer’s world as a jumping off point for their own creative expression. The weekend left me so energized, I’m already looking ahead to projects for next year.

Shapeshifter v. Werewolf

I have a little bit of a pet peeve about the blurring of the lines between werewolves and shapeshifters, just because a shifter takes the shape of a wolf that doesn’t mean he or she is a werewolf.

Let’s look at werewolves first. Werewolves are cursed creatures. They’re people who, under the influence of a curse, are forced into the shape of a wolf during the full moon. They don’t have any control over the change or over their actions while in wolf form. Finally, the “curse” can be transmitted through blood or body fluid contact.

A lot of the werewolves we see in fiction now are not, at least by that definition, werewolves. They are shapeshifters who take the form of a wolf. For the most part, they seem to retain their human intelligence and personality while in wolf form. Therefore, if the person is a killer the wolf will also kill humans. If the person is not a killer then the wolf is, for the most part, not a danger to humans.

I read a lot of paranormal romance and that issue bugs me. The werewolf is the hero so he can’t be entirely a werewolf otherwise it’s tough to make him sympathetic. So most of them are shapeshifters with werewolfy tendencies. They shift usually around the full moon, but they can shift at other times. Their shifting seems more connected to their emotional state than to the phase of the moon.

When I imagined the wolves of Lowell island, I called them werewoves at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to see that they weren’t really werewolves. They maintain human intelligence, they shift at will, they don’t stress about their loss of humanity. The shapeshifters of Lowell island, don’t consider themselves human at all. They don’t do  it often, but they are not averse to eating humans.

Oops, I almost called them werewolves again, the shapeshifters, or the changing kind of Lowell Island featured in my short story Spirit Wolf, are neither wolf nor man they are another species  that happens to share the world with humans. Usually, we put ourselves at the top of the food chain, but what if that’s an illusion. We look into the night and see only the lights and sounds of the city. What if there are things walking in the darkness, just beyond our sight, that watch and wait for  one of us to stray from path.  I think that is the ingredient I’ve been missing that I want in my own work. I want to take that journey into the shadows.

Destiny's Childe Cover Preview

I finished my first stab at making a cover for my upcoming short story, Destiny's Child, today. I might make another version or two just to try out some other ideas, but so far this one's not bad. The story is about a prescient boy who tries to change the future for someone he loves. 

On My Knitting Needles: The Merino and Cashmere Cowl

Cowl’s are the new "it" garment. I saw an article in the New York Times last winter that got me interested in them. The title was something like can the cowl save Christmas. I made one for myself last year and I wore it all winter long.

Clothing sales were kind of dismal in winter 2010, according to the story, clothing designers were trying to make cowls happen because it was an article of clothing that most people didn’t already have in their closets. The designer cowls the Times featured were really hot, but the prices were well past the limits of my budget.

I thought about it, and finally said to myself, "hey that’s a tube, I can knit a tube," and my first cowl was born. Of course, being me, I couldn’t just knit a tube. That cowl turned into an exploration of using the golden ratio as a design tool. 

I considered trying to knit it as a moebius, but my skills weren’t up to the task. Check out the moebius cast on method below. Cat Bordhi, knit wear designer and knitting Goddess, gives a great lesson in casting on a true moebius.

 
  Eventually, I just knit it back and forth like a scarf then grafted the two ends together after giving them a twist.

The project on my needles now is another cowl inspired by the first one. My aunt saw me wearing mine and asked if I could make one for her too. It’s on a much smaller scale because my Aunt Veronica is a much smaller person than I am. 

I spent a few weeks swatching and hating my swatches when I found this neat pattern called Aqua Ripples in Simply Knitting magazine, Issue 81, June 2011, page 67. 

I loved how fast the cowl grew in the bulky yarn. The pattern looks a lot more complicated than it is, every other row you just go back to the basic three by one rib, very relaxing TV knitting.

And no, I couldn’t just follow the pattern and make the shallow, but very nice cowl pictured. I’ve modified the pattern so that the cowl would be longer and wider than the original design. Cowls feel more luxurious to me when you can twist them once or twice around your neck, or pull them up to form a hood.

The yarn was a Michael’s find: Lion Brand Super Wash Merino, a blend of 70% merino wool, 20% cashmere with a dab of nylon in Slate (color # 150), an elegant shade of gray. You get the warmth of wool and the softness of cashmere. I thought it was a steal at $7.99 a ball. 


I'm planning a visit with her over Labor Day weekend. I should have her cowl completely finished by then.

If I have enough yarn left, she might even get a pair of fingerless mitts because I really like knitting this pattern.

Some Summer Reading

I’ve accepted that I’m what Barbara Sher refers to as a scanner. I have a zillion interests that I pursue with varying degrees of passion for however long the fire lasts. I say this to prepare you for my summer reading list.It seems a little, how do I put it politely—eclectic?

The Post American World

Fareed Zacharia says, "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." I’m nearly done with this refreshing look at the past and future of American hegemony. 

Knitting the Old Way, by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson

I’ve been a knitter for about three years now and I’m just becoming adventurous enough to try to stop being a slave to patterns. Ms. Roberts breaks down the construction methods for traditional garments so that line by line instructions aren’t necessary. I made a shawl using basic “how to make a triangle,” instructions and embellished it with stitch patterns of my own choosing. I frogged that thing more times than I care to count, but in the end I love wearing it and I have an understanding of how to make a triangular shawl with or without a pattern.

UnHoly Angels, by Karen Fenech

I added this to my reading list because when I got to the end of the sample I downloaded I wanted more immediately. What can I say about a thriller that has murder, suicide, grave robbing, child abuse and political corruption in the first four chapters—buckle up it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Hard Day’s Knight(Black Knight Chronicles), by John G. Hartness

How can you not laugh at a story about an overweight, vampire who tries to solve mysteries wearing a spandex body stocking, a cape, and a utility belt? The sample chapters had me laughing out loud.

On China, by Henry Kissinger

I see On China as a companion to the Post American World. I’ll be taking a look at the modern relationship between China and the United States through the eyes of the man who designed the American side of the exchange.

That’s the lineup so far. I’ll post another one of these updates in August

TweetLit #1: I Am The Hunter

Hmm, she's hip for an H&M girl. Watching her browse mall goods, unaware she's prey thrills me. H&M, Gap, Macy's, sheep! Taking her wallet was easy. She even apologized for bumping in to me. I dubbed her Mocha.

I bought a shiny, new hatchet with Mocha's credit card. I need to make space for her. I'll pick her up in a few days.

Doe's in the cage cuddling her predecessor's head. She ate the rest, eventually. Tacos for her last meal I think.

Cage cleaned, steaks, roasts, ground meat prepped, before I left, I put Doe's head in the cage. I'm ready for Mocha.

(c) 2011 Lisa Toppin


If you'd like to see I Am The Hunter in its original form search Twitter for #iamthehunter. For more Tweetlit, follow me on Twitter.

A Puzzle And A Haiku Have A Baby

I'm getting a kick out of writing these microstories. This first one was like figuring out a puzzle. How do I create a full scene with each tweet when I have less than characters? The answer: graph paper and loads of rewrites.

I've fallen in love with Sharpie Liquid Pencils. I know it's an erasable pen, but the ink looks really pencilly, and after about 24 hours it's indelible. That means lots of working time for rewrites and no smudgy notes. Yay Sharpie!

Twit Lit? What do you call a story told in Tweets?

I listened to an Accidental Creative podcast yesterday. The show was an interview with Noah Scalin, who created the Skull-a-Day blog. I was really inspired by his project and decided to create one of my own . I'm going to tweet a super short story every day for a year and a day (love the fairy tale-ishness of that). Some tweets will be complete stories, others will be just a portion of a tweet series. Tweet-tastic I'm psyched.

What's Next?

I'll have the next short story ready to upload by the end of May. I finally have a working title that I might keep : Seeds of Fate. It's part of a quotation from Harry S. Truman;  "Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny." I'm still open to another title, but this was the one that evoked the theme of the story for me. 

This story takes place in the world of my novel many years in the past. I'm kind of toying with the idea of fate. Are certain events predestined? Can we influence our destiny? If we can to what degree?

Speaking of predestination, tomorrow is May 21, the projected date of the "Rapture," sort of a kick off party to the Christian doomsday. The excitement this latest end of the world scenario has ignighted (the second by Harold Camping btw) makes me think a lot of people believe in predestination.

Is there a date set for the end of the world in a cosmic outlook calendar? I don't know, but I'd like to think we are free to create our own destinies both individually and collectively as a species. In any case, as an eclectic pagan, I don't have to worry about being kidnapped naked by a supernatural being.  Wow, doesn't that sound like the plot of a paranormal romance?

The Great Saunter 2011

Last Saturday I participated in the Great Saunter, a 32 mile hike around the perimeter of Manhattan sponsored by the Shorewalkers.

I arrived at W 42nd St., in time for the late start at 9:30 am, then set off on the greenway.  Bright, cool, and breezy it was a perfect day for a long walk.

I've spent the last few months working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and Walking In This World with a group of friends. One of the tools Cameron suggests for artists is the Artist walk, a 20 minute walk where you just observe your own thoughts and the world. For me, the Great Saunter was an artist walk on steroids.

Starting at the Circle Line terminal brought back the time my parent's took me and my sister to Bear Mountain for a picnic. I think I was about 5 or 6 years old.

I passed the Intrepid Air Sea Space museum. I visited it for the first time last summer and got to meet a veteran who served on the ship. He told me the story of how he rode out a typhoon on board the Intrepid  during WWII.

It was great to slow down and really enjoy the parks and greenways.

 

There were little moments of surprise and delight every where. I even saw just a bit of the views that inspired the Hudson River School painters of the 19th century.

I called it a saunter at around 1:15 pm when there was a short burst of rain. By then I'd pass through Dewitt Clinton Park, Riverside Park, West Harlem Piers Park, Riverbank State Park and walked 7 miles of NYC Greenways.

I left the greenway at W158 st and Riverside Drive. The beauty of living in NYC is that you can spend the day walking through green spaces and still pop out just a few blocks from a subway station. I got the #1 at W 157 st and Broadway and headed for home tired, but refreshed at the same time.

My next urban hiking adventure is to walk the next leg of the greenway from W158 st to the Little Red Light House in Inwood.

Next year I'm walking all 32 miles of the Great Saunter.

I feel like Rocky

I saw a quotation today that really inspired me:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”--Theodore Roosevelt

Self-Published

Last month I started a small publishing company(Triskelion Enterprises) and published my first short story, Spirit Wolf: A Short Story. The experience was a little nerve wracking, but exciting as hell. Today, a friend saw the story on Amazon after googling me, and she said that it looked like a real book. That made my day.