Clover Autrey

"When Jake Matthews walked out the door for his early morning run, he had no idea he’d be dead in twenty-three minutes. Nor that it would begin the biggest adventure of his life."

I jotted this down this morning. I've been working on a book off and on for a couple of years. You know, it's that book, the one that won't go away, that you have completely plotted out and know it inside and out, yet it is just too big of an idea to throw yourself completely into at this time in your life, so it percolates, always there, but never quite right, even while I'm actually working on it between other projects. The beginning, those first few crucial lines have never been right. I've rewritten them a quintillion times, but today I thought I had something good. I didn't realize how right until my 15 year old daughter came in and saw my scratchy lines, lying on my desk and startled me by saying, "Is this a life after death thing? or does he have an adventure in only 23 minutes?" I had hooked her. She had to know. So much so that instead of running off to do her own thing, she sat down at my computer while I pulled up the first chapter (all that's written so far) and she read it right then and there.

Yeah, I'm smiling.

So what's been your favorite first lines that hooked you?

I finished reading Eragon at the hospital. It was better than I expected. It followed the standard fantasy pattern. Young farmland hero becomes the only person who can save the land (this time via being chosen by the dragon to be the Rider). Said young hero is taken under the wing of an aged and knowledgeable master/wizard type who teaches him a few things about magic, yet partway through the book will leave (usually being killed - as were Gandalf and Obi Wan), which forces the young hero to muddle through and carry on the quest without any guidance, except for the aid of companions who gather round him (be it elves, wookies, droids, cargo smugglers, dwarves . . .) In Eragon's case, it is elves, dwarves, and the son of his enemy.

Nothing entirely new. However, I'm going to defend that very aspect by saying, "Who cares?" I, for one, like this format. It works. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And as far as changing the bathwater, Christopher Paolini has enough fresh cultures and ideas to make Eragon worth reading. It is enjoyable.

The aspects of this book that I truly find admirable and soaring above the rest are 1) the fact that it is a 15 year old boy writing about a 15 year old boy. The thoughts and feelings that come through are fascinating. Incredible true-to-life characterization on that part. Aspiring writers should read the book just to glean insights on how to build a character well, alone.

The second aspect is Mr. Paolini's courage in having his character ask and ponder huge moralistic questions and then leaving them without having answered them. Because in truth, these were the type of questions that there really is no answer for. A good example comes when Eragon, Murtaugh and Saphira are evading an army of their enemies and are attacked by a smaller party of bandits. Murtaugh consisely kills the bandit leader while he is on his knees. Eragon argues that that seemed like murder. Saphira councels the result would have been the same had Murtaugh, being a superior swordsman, fought the bandit again and killed him, and that they couldn't let the bandit go and tell the approaching enemy army of their whereabouts. Eragon mulls it over for quite some time, but what I love about it is the author never intrudes and stamps his own moral answers into it. He allows it to be one of those questions in life that each individual and situation has to answer for itself.

I can cite some adult writers who haven't been able to constrain themselves on that point. One of my most favorite authors comes to mind, not to name names, but it starts with a "G" and ends with a "oodkind" When Richard was standing on that slab of rock on that mountain, lecturing, it was as though Richard took a step back and the author jumped right into his body. I've never felt author instrucion so blatantly in my life. Though Mr. G knows the Wizard's First Rule well, he had forgotten the Writer's First Rule, which is: Readers are not stupid. We got your point. When good people do nothing, they are really allowing evil to prevail. We got it. We got it the first time Richard pointed it out. We got it when Kahlan conveyed it. We got it when Nicci realized it at the statues. We got it again when Nicci lectured about it in the stables. We got it when Zedd restated it. Believe me, we did not need Richard to go on and on and on for three chapters or more on that mountain. I love G's books. I will read anything he writes, but I am begging him to please remember the Writer's First Rule. We got it. Terry Goodkind's page Christopher Paolini's page

Chase is home. No more dragging myself to the hospital every other day that I don't work. I can actually spend a few moments time with my other children. It is such a relief, such a release of tension. I never want to go through this again. C's liver better keep healthy.

It's been a long two months, but finally, Chase has had his surgery and his spleen has been removed. He made it off the ventilitor, something the docs in Dallas feared wouldn't happen, but it did. He is fine, his lungs are fine, and without that big bloated pain-inducing dying spleen, he is looking wonderful.

Right after surgery, though, he looked terrible. DH and I got to go in right as C was having a coughing spasm, and he had tubes coming out his nose and throat. As strong as I was trying to be, I couldn't. I lost it right there. Thank God DH volunteered to stay with him those first couple of days. I really couldn't do it. The only consolation was that I knew with the meds he was on, that he wasn't in pain, nor would he remember any of it. In fact, he doesn't remember anything from those first three days. I always will though.

When he did wake up, I was talking to him, telling him how strong his body was, what a miracle he was, when I realized he was responding with his fingers. He could barely move, couldn't speak because of the tubes, but we figured out how to communicate. I kept reasurring him that I was there, mom was there, that he'd never be left alone, and I watched his body relax. It was heartbreaking. But fortunately he doesn't remember any of that either.

I started this blog mainly to appear more professional as a writer, you know have an online presence to impress perspective agents and editors. But as life took over, it became a nice little place to update my family and friends about my son's illness and to vent, of course. I have, however, established my own web page devoted solely to my writing, but occasionally I would like to share something worthwhile and writerly.

I joined the Online Writers Workshop of Sci Fi and fantasy several years ago, expecting to wow all the other workshoppers with my unparalleled stories. What I immediately found out was that my writing was not anywhere up to snuff. Extremely simple things that I thought I had learned in high school, I hadn't. It was actually quite embarrassing, but also extremely enlightening. There was something about learning from my own mistakes from other people's eyes that seemed to get into my thick head a lot more powerfully than just looking at other's people's errors. When my own little babies were ripped apart word by word it was heartbreaking, sometimes discouraging, but damn did it make me a better writer.

I especially owe a great grammatical thank you to one Larry West who I traded critiques with. Frankly, I don't think I helped him greatly, but he was a lifeline to me. A literal grammar guru professor type, he patiently and painstakingly went through each of my postings line by line and kindly pointed out all my many mistakes, then explained why they were mistakes and the proper way to write it out. I can only imagine he must be the type of person who likes to fix things, search for things to fix, you know, the type of person who loves crosswords and puzzles, because, well, I had a lot.

However, after months of trading critiques with him, he sent one of mine back with the words close to: "This is near perfect, Clover. I'm hard-pressed to find anything to correct." Had you been a fly on my wall, you would have seen my chair fly back from my computer desk as I proceeded to do a very happy victory dance.

Anyway, in honor of Larry who was willing to tolerate someone who had very little skill in grammar, my little nuggets of writing wisdom to pass on will be bare-boned simplistic. I'm talking about things that should have been taught in, if not elementary school, then at least intermediate or junior high, possibly things that were taught, but tuned out, because passing colorful doodle-enhanced notes between friends was far more entertaining than droning teachers. No past perfect presence tense lectures here yet or things that professional writers don't even sneeze at. I'm going basic, simple . . . to things that make all new writers that are first getting serious about their craft slap their foreheads, exclaiming, "Duh, I should have known that." These are the things that make us feel dumb and stupid and way out of our league because we should already know this, but missed it somewhere. So I will be the brave writer here and say, "Yeah, I didn't know these things either." I once thought that it was better to be a great storyteller and have talent than grammatical skill. I couldn't have been more wrong. A lot of hard work and relearning and being humble enough to let my work be slashed to pieces, shaped me into a far better writer than I ever could have been.

Okay, since I rambled, the first lesson will be short.
Aspiring Writers Lesson One:

It's verse Its. It's is the conjunction for It is. Its represents that the It in question has ownership of something. You wouldn't write her's, or his's for their possessives. Just remember: His, hers, its.

End of lesson.