by Roseanna White | Jan 23, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I’ve been writing for a long time. As in, a long time. I finished my first novel at age 13. My second at 16. Then six more by the time I was 21. That’s a lot of words on the page. A lot of plot. A lot of characters to come to love. And I always had the goal of getting published. Putting those stories into the world.
That means criticism.
Now, no matter what you do in life, you’re going to come up against criticism. But me…I wasn’t so good at taking it, and I can admit that now that I’m old (ahem) and wise (cough, cough). 😉 Even when it was a simple matter of needing to trim a few scenes, I couldn’t do it. I was too attached. I loved every word. I mean, if I read through something all on my own and saw a mistake or a way to make a sentence sound better, sure. I’d change it. But on someone else’s advice?
Nuh uh. No way.
Yeah…I had some work to do, LOL. I formed a critique group, and that helped so much. My internal protests to every suggestion quickly shrank from a day to a minute to a few seconds’ debate. I learned to measure and weigh advice.
I learned to adopt a distance between me and my work. To realize that my book wasn’t me. An attack on something I created (not that my critique partners attacked! But looking forward here to reviews…) was not an attack on my person.
Distance. It’s the friend of a writer. It’s the friend of everyone when it comes to these situations. It’s so easy to take things personally, but what does that lead to? Hurt feelings. Offense. Division. It happens in friendships, families, churches.
Lately, I’ve thought that I have distance pretty well down. Mastered. I invest my heart in my books while I write them, then I put them down. I walk away. And I approach all else about them with what I figured was healthy detachment. Changes to a book? In my whole direction? In what project I’m working on? I can do that. Why not. No problem.
But here’s the thing…when one has “mastered” distance, sometimes it masters you. Sometimes you look at everything with that lens. Sometimes you stop investing altogether. And that can’t be good. Because hope, faith, and detachment are a strange combination. And when that last one has the upper hand, you don’t always even realize if the other two have faded.
In this balancing act we call life, it seems like something or another is always out of whack, doesn’t it? We always have work to do. Right now, part of mine is in finding this particular equilibrium. In making sure that keeping a distance from my work doesn’t turn into keeping a distance from faith that God’s working through it.
I definitely need some space between me and the things of my hands. But between me and the work God’s doing in me–no. That I need to embrace fully. That I need to hold close. That I need to be protective of. So that I can still hope…not in a particular outcome, but in the One who’s controlling it.
by Roseanna White | Jan 20, 2014 | Word of the Week
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| A Roman Calendar |
When I’m writing or editing historicals, much of my word nit-picking relies on gut and ear. If something feels too new or sounds too new (as in, I don’t remember reading it in works of the period), I look it up. Which is how I came to look up date last week.
Date obviously has a long history…in some senses. Ignoring the fruit called a date, which has been around forever, let’s look at the noun and verb that both have to do with noting the day. These have been around since the 14th century, directly from the Latin datum. From which also comes data, apparently. Which makes sense, but I don’t think I ever thought of it, LOL.
This primary meaning gradually evolved to mean “appointment.” But it took several hundred years for that appointment to gain a romantic sense–as in, not until the 1890s, five or so years after it came to mean “liaison.” But this was still just the actual meeting. Calling a person your date didn’t come about until 1925.
And to round it all out, “date” was also used to call something old-fashioned or out-of-date (her clothes date her) in 1895. So many meanings! Some so very old, some so relatively new.
Quick side note! I just added a page to my website featuring the book covers I’ve designed. I didn’t realize how many there were! LOL. If you’d like to check them out–or if you have a project you’d like me to consider taking on–do swing over to http://www.roseannawhite.com/wordpress/designs and take a look at my gallery. I’d love to hear which is your favorite. 😉
by Roseanna White | Jan 16, 2014 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| by Jean-François Millet Angelus, 1859 |
Prayer.
It’s one of those things that believers know we need. It’s communion. It’s supplication. It’s worship.
It’s crucial. Vital.
And hard for me to find the time to engage in.
That sounds awful, and is awful. But it’s true, and I suspect I’m not the only busy parent who encounters this. I can find time every day to read my Bible, because whenever a little one comes up and interrupts me, it’s just a matter of finding my place again and continuing. But when prayer is interrupted (which it always is), it’s a little harder to get back to.
Sometimes I journal my prayers, and that works well…until I can’t find a pen or misplace my notebook. Which happens, LOL.
But one of my resolutions this year was to spend more time in prayer. And so, each day, I’m trying.
Usually, it looks like this. The kids run out of the room on some search, and I whisper to the Lord the thoughts weighing on my mind. It lasts about half a minute, before the little ones come tearing back in. Or I’m in the shower. Shower has become prayer time. It’s the only solid 15 minutes I have in a day without guaranteed interruptions, so I’ve made a concerted effort to use it for that God time.
And mostly, I’m trying to listen. You know those times you get that feeling? I’m making a conscious decision to heed those.
Like last week, when I got that feeling that I should fill up the water jugs. We have a well, so no electricity = no water. It was supposed to be colder than it had been in 20 years, and windy. So I filled up the jugs. And I prayed the Lord would keep us warm. And I knew–knew–we’d lose power.
It went out at 3 a.m. and didn’t come back on until twelve hours later. The house had dropped down to just under 50 degrees, but we had water. And we kept warm enough. And I thanked God for that warning whisper.
I’ve also found myself praying very pointedly lately. Like, when praying for a new opportunity, being very specific in what I hope for and when I hope for it. These prayers always feel a little strange to me, and I tend to hedge them with, “You know…maybe…if this is Your will…” But they also feel right. And they keep proving themselves. Twice now in the last couple weeks these very-specific prayers have yielded very-specific, very quick results.
When I think of prayer, I often think of Jewel of Persia. My heroine had a prayer life I aspire to, yet which feels very out of reach to me. She, after all, had servants to help her out, LOL. But though I can’t feasibly spend hours on my knees before the Lord, I can give Him my all. I can trust Him fully to deliver what’s best for me. And yes, I can listen.
And when I listen…well, I won’t say nothing ever catches me by surprise. But a lot less has lately. Good news and bad have been more a “Okay…yep…that’s what God was saying, all right” than a “Wha????”
I’ve got a lot of growing to do here yet. A lot. But I love these lessons. I love crawling up into the lap of my God and knowing He’s holding me tight. I love pausing, stopping, and getting that feeling. I love knowing it’s my heavenly Father, guiding me through my every day.
I love having prayer in my life. And I’m so, so grateful that my Lord loves it too.
by Roseanna White | Jan 15, 2014 | Books, Cover Designs
Well last week’s cover post was so much fun, I decided to do another one today. =) Especially because this week I’m editing the truly-amazing book behind the cover.
Soul Painter is set in 1891 Chicago–a city of crime and excess, where the opium dens butt up against churches, where the opulence contrasts the squalor. The author of this book is Cara Luecht (pronounced “Licked”–I asked), and she has a skill the likes of which I haven’t seen in years for painting a mood.
What mood, you ask? Gothic. A touch of film noire. The elements are every designer’s dream. We have an eccentric hermit of a heroine–Miriam Beaumont hasn’t, so far as Chicago knows, stepped foot out of her warehouse apartment since her father died some years ago. Maybe she’s a witch. Maybe she was terribly burned in an industrial accident. Maybe…maybe…
Maybe she preferred to watch the world go by.
But she did go outside. Once in a while. Only at night. Only in the fog. Then she would pace the streets around her dormant warehouse, beside the cathedral. She would look up at the statue of the Virgin Mary outside it and identify with the cracked creation. But she would always return before dawn could pierce the fog.
And she would paint. She would watch the faces that went by, and she would paint. First what her eyes saw.
And then what her soul did. Over the layers of reality she would paint…the future. For years, she had done this, and then watched the children grow up into the image she had seen.
Until Ione. Ione was supposed to be strong. Ione was supposed to be successful. So why is the young woman now haunting the alleyway between the warehouse and cathedral as a prostitute? It puts her in the path of an attacker who preys on such women, who nearly kills her. Until the fog rolls in.
So begins an unlikely team of crime fighters. A hermit. A priest. A lawyer. Two prostitutes. Can they bring light to the seedy underbelly of Chicago? And maybe discover something about themselves–and of course, find some romance–along the way?
Curious yet? 😉
This is a truly fabulous book, and the moment I read the proposal, I knew we wanted it. And I was already envisioning the cover. I wanted to capture Miriam on one of her foggy night walks. Gray cloak obscuring her features, apprehension on her face. Perhaps when she first heard that moan coming from Ione. Perhaps when she sees dawn sneaking in.
As usual, I started with the stock photo sites, searching for images of women in cloaks. This was the best image I found for Miriam.
There’s a lot right about this–it’s full length, which I loved. The look on her face is great. Her face itself is a decent Miriam. But the braid–no. The color of the dress–no. For that matter, the color of the cape–no. And of course, the background is all wrong.
So I started by erasing the background and that braid. (Oh, how I love the clone and heal tools in Photoshop!)
Now that I had her isolated, I started playing with the colors. I decided to make the dress a teal. It is, in fact, not a color Miriam ever wore at this point in the story, but she ends up with a very important dress that draws on that color palette, and I like the idea of bringing it in.
Then I made the cloak gray.
At some point I remembered to change her eye color to gray too, but I don’t remember when I did that, LOL.
So my next task was the background. I actually did a lot of searching for this one, trying to find that perfect image that would capture Chicago at the time. I searched, and I searched. I tried some arches. I tried some doorways. And then I growled and tried “cathedral.” Bingo!
This is actually from New Orleans, LOL, but it’s the right style and age, and I loved the picture itself. Foggy, which blurs the street lights enough that you can’t really tell if they’re gas or electric.
But it’s too bright–you know, like day–and I wanted some serious mood. So I darkened the image and added a color overlay. Teal again, to pull in the dress. (And took out that orange traffic cone, LOL. Eventually. Actually didn’t notice it until Cara said, “Uh, Roseanna…?”)
Ah, much better. =) Now to plug Miriam into it.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. There’s just one rather crucial piece missing.
The fog.
I deemed this a learning experience and hit Google. =) You know what I love about the internet these days? There are tutorials for everything online. I’d never tried to create fog in Photoshop before, but I knew it could be done. So I typed “how to make fog in Photoshop” into my handy-dandy search engine, and voila! A tutorial! Better yet, it’s easy. A pretty simple matter of creating a new layer, adding the cloud filter, and then fooling with the fade gradient.
So I added a layer of fog to Miriam by the cathedral.
Ah yes, there we are! That’s what I was looking for!
Now, the masterful Cara Luecht also has some background in design, and an eye that shows it. She knew exactly what she wanted for her cover in terms of style. She wanted a black block at the bottom, a flourish coming up behind it, and the tag line for the book on there.
I actually had some trouble finding a flourish that would work. There are tons of free flourishes out there online, but they’re small. And I needed to make this one HUGE. So I actually ended up buying a vector pack, which I try to avoid for this sort of element, LOL. And selected this one.
Now, the title. We actually debated a bit about this too. =) Cara had at first titled it Portrait of Grace, which was thematically awesome. Problem was, it didn’t speak to the mystery and intrigue. And mystery and intrigue are a very vital element to this story, so we tossed around several different ideas. Drew on our other awesome WhiteFire authors to vote. And decided on Soul Painter. Because, well, she paints the souls of people. And paints them from her soul. So it works. =)
Hence began the search for a font. I couldn’t find one that I loved, so I ended up patching a couple together. The S in Soul is different than the rest.
Then we had only to put it all together!
And I’m thrilled to say that when I posted this one to Facebook, I got a bigger response than I ever had to a cover. My book club ladies even approached me at a Christmas event that week and said, “We’re reading that, right? Tell me more about it!” That tag line and the cover hooked them. Which is, of course, our goal. =)
And it’s a book that deserves to hook. It’s got intrigue, spiritual truths, history, romance, and hope against a backdrop of darkness. Love it. Seriously. And you will too. So you know, if you wanna pre-order, feel free. 😉
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 