What cupcake should be featured in Dowser 5?

At the beginning of Dowser 5 *spoiler alert* Drake eats three different cupcakes. Two are new creations of Jade’s, and the fledgling has previously tasted the third one.

Dowser Series cupcake Masterlist
                                                          The Cupcake Masterlist for the Dowser Series

As I was working through the third draft today, I thought it might be fun if readers of the Dowser Series decided on the ‘previously tasted’ cupcake.

To that end, I have embedded a poll below – which I seriously hope works – with five possibilities. All of the cupcakes on the poll were mentioned in Dowser 1, and therefore could have previously been consumed by Drake (which is the main criteria).

Pick one. Majority rules.

I promise to release the cupcake recipe a couple of weeks before I release Dowser 5. Yum!

An unsettled breath.

I’m having a strangely, unsettled morning. I was about to post this germ of a thought as a Facebook status update, but I couldn’t seem to articulate it in a couple of sentences, which made me realize it was a blog post. And, yay for that realization! Because I always forget to blog.

So … back to being unsettled. I have a book ready to go to the proof reader. But she can’t start work on it until Wednesday – which is cool, because that is the day I booked her – so that leaves me with two more days. I’ve already filled the morning with last minute tweaks, and I could probably fill the afternoon the same way. In between, I sat down to make a to-do list leading up to the release day.

It’s a rather long list. An exciting, fun list, but long.

So I’m standing here, caught in this breath between –

Okay, Michael just walked into the office looking for a battery for his rechargeable razor-clipper-thingy completely naked. Yes, I turned from writing this post to see my husband wander into the office naked. I actually gasped, then I giggled as if I’d never seen him naked before. Fifteen years of marriage and I was shocked.

So, um, yeah. Not feeling particularly unsettled now. I guess I better tackle that … to-do list.

Right.

The list.

It’s rather long.

Oh, FYI, five days of giveaways are coming. Feb 21-25, 2015.

[normally I attach some kind of picture to every blog post … but that doesn’t seem at all appropriate here]

reblogged: A Difficult Funeral, aka a scene from Dowser 1.5

I noticed that a few visitors to my blog found this piece of flash fiction from Sept 20, 2013 today. I’d practically forgotten all about it. I think I’d intended on writing more shorts, but then just focused on the novels. I thought you might get a kick out of it, so I’m reblogging.

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This 1300 word flash fiction — inspired by the Spin the Wheel of Conflict challenge issued by Chunk Wendig — is set three weeks after the events in my urban fantasy novel, Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic. As such, it contains SPOILERS for that story. Please read the following at your own risk … wow, that sounds ominous.

Also, this has not been professionally edited or proofed (yet), but I hope you enjoy getting a glimpse of Jade in between novels none-the-less.

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A Difficult Funeral

I hadn’t been sure what shoes to wear. What shoes I was supposed wear to the funeral of the man my sister murdered and then ate.

Actually, I had that order wrong — consistently — in my head. But I couldn’t seem to bear the understanding when I reversed it.

So, yeah. Shoes. And cupcakes. I baked cupcakes. A new recipe, but I didn’t mention that part to anyone.

It wasn’t really a funeral, as in a ceremony set in a church or anything formal. Rather a day set aside by the family for grieving … for saying condolences.

Gran had insisted we make an appearance. But now, faced with the dingy around the edges Georgian mansion of the Novaks, I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t sure I’d make it out in one piece. Mentally. With Gran and Scarlett by my side, no one would lift more than a sneer to me. If that. The Godfrey coven was formidable. A fact I’d only just learned even though I’d been a de facto member for twenty-three years now. I’d chosen boots instead of shoes. My black Babycake Minis, to be exact. The Vancouver spring had been unusually warm and dry. But today, it was appropriately threatening to rain.

“Ten minutes,” Scarlett murmured to my right. I was getting a crook in my neck from staring up at the house. The Novaks were old money, as old as money got in Canada. But I hadn’t known that until Scarlett turned the car towards Shaughnessy five minutes before we’d arrived. I’d hoped the drive would take longer.

Scarlett brushed her fingers down my arm. Her charismatic magic tingled in a wake across my skin. I should have worn a sweater, not just a black lace scarf. And the boots were wrong too. Not formal enough.

Gran stepped forward, and I automatically followed. She’d rolled her long gray braid in a bun today. That was as formal as she got. Scarlett, of course, outshone us all — in her navy dress that was cut just so and the perfect length — as always. Her strawberry blond hair gleamed against the gray backdrop of the cloudy day.

“Should we be here?” I asked and not for the first time. No one answered me. They’d stopped after the first two times.

Other cars lined the curved driveway. We’d parked at the curb. Vancouver boasted a very small Adept community, but this was still a tiny turnout. And we were late.

As we approached, I could feel the magic of the Adept gathered in the house even with the familiar taste of Scarlett and Gran beside me.

Something caught my eye and I looked toward the blooming rhododendron bushes edging the property. The vampire, Kett, showed himself to me and then slipped further into the shadows. His presence didn’t help. Sienna had tried to kill us all not three weeks ago. I didn’t need the reminder.

A necromancer opened the door. Not Rusty’s mother or sister, who I’d never met, but some familial connection. I could tell by the underlying taste of her magic. An aunt, perhaps.

She smiled tightly at Gran. “Pearl. Thank you for coming.”

“We won’t stay,” Gran answered.

We stepped into the entrance way. It was marble. Stairs, the carpet runner down the middle worn with use, swooped up from in front of us to the second floor. A few more Adepts —  their magic tingling my senses — stood through an archway that led to the drawing room. They’d all stopped to pretend they weren’t staring at us.

Someone — deeper in the house — was weeping. The handle of the plastic tray I was holding cracked in my hand. The cupcakes tumbled to the side. Three landed on the ground before I steadied the tray. A boy, his features painfully similar to Rusty’s, darted forward to pick the cupcakes up.

“Oh, so sorry,” the necromancer aunt said. “I should’ve taken those. You’re lovely for bringing them.”

Her apology hit me in the gut. I smiled. My clenched jaw shot pain into my temple, which was good as it cleared my head a little. “My condolences,” I said as I passed the tray to her. I kept the broken piece of plastic clutched in my left hand. The boy — a cousin I guessed from my little knowledge of the familial line — placed the three squashed cupcakes on the tray and then carried the whole thing through to the drawing room.

The person — a girl, I thought — was still crying. It was obvious that no one but I could hear her.

“Those cupcakes won’t last five minutes,” the necromancer said. I was fairly certain I was supposed to know her name though she was from out of town.

I wondered if she was here for moral support during the tribunal that was set to start Monday. I hoped so.

“Danica?” Gran asked.

“Of course. Please, this way,” the necromancer said. She turned to lead us into the drawing room.

I followed Gran. Scarlett stopped to speak to someone I hadn’t even noticed as I passed. I felt muffled, as if I was wrapped in gauze. Even all the magic swirling around me barely made an impression. Normally, I’d be getting a buzz off being around this many of the Adept.

The room was filled with pictures. Literally every inch of the wall and table space was covered in family photographs. Some black and white dated way back. Some showed the characteristic yellowing of the seventies. Even more were obviously recent additions. And if they weren’t of Rusty then they contained someone who looked like him. Obviously, genes ran true in the Novak clan.

Gran bent over a woman sitting on an overstuffed, floral print armchair by a bay window that overlooked the lush green of the side yard. Danica. Rusty’s Mother. However, it was me Danica locked gazes with over Gran’s shoulder. Her red-rimmed eyes were the shape of Rusty’s, and her hair a shade lighter. The underlying tone of her magic — sugared violets — the exact taste of her son’s. She wasn’t the person weeping. The weeping that was suddenly all I could hear, but then maybe that was just because everyone had just dropped the pretense of conversation.

The boy from before passed Rusty’s mother one of my cupcakes on a china side plate. She accepted it and didn’t drop my gaze as she bit into it. Then she smiled at me. A tight smile full of pain.

Some people thought I laced the cupcakes I baked with a bit of my magic. These chocolate carrot cake with chocolate cream cheese icing cupcakes I called, Solace in a Cup.

I turned and left. It was rude and probably unforgivable according to Gran, but I still couldn’t hear anything but the weeping. My own tears were lodged in my chest, collected around the permanent pain that was all I had left of my sister, because how could I cry? How could I mourn for a sister who’d murdered her boyfriend all because she wanted to be special? Because she wanted to be more special than me. So Rusty was dead because of me. Because I was stupid, slow, and foolhardy.

And still I couldn’t cry.

I stepped out into the fresh air. It had started to rain.

I began to walk home. The vampire followed never showing himself, but always at my back.

It was cold comfort.

I looked down at the piece of broken plastic in my hand. It had sliced the skin of my palm — cut that would have needed stitches on a human. The wound, released from the plastic shard, instantly healed.

I wished that Sienna had stabbed me through the heart instead of twice in the gut, because at least that would have a chance of healing.

Before she ate and then killed Rusty.

Well, at least I had the order straight now.

A read-a-long with the author: Cupcakes (Etc)

I’m about to send The Oracle #1 off to the editor – yay – and dig back into writing Dowser #4. Yes, I have titles for both of those books and I will release them soon as well.

During the next couple of weeks as I write Dowser #4 I’m going to be doing some fun things that I thought you might like to know about and/or participate in.

Starting Wednesday, I’m reading through the first three Dowser books. I’ll download them on my iPad,  sit down, and actually read them as if I was … well, a reader. I’ll share my favourite quotes and thoughts about certain sections as I read. Perhaps you will have questions yourself? Or favourite quotes to share?

I’ll start a new post here on the blog and a new thread on my Facebook page for each book as I read.

I’m expecting to start Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic on Wednesday. The ebook is perma-free everywhere if you haven’t grabbed it yet (links on the book page). I’m a fast reader, so I expect to have it done in a day, barring any other work that needs my attention. Then I’ll read Trinkets (Etc) and then Treasures (Etc).

The second thing I’m going to be doing is testing some new cupcakes – specifically with some wild blackberries I picked the other day. It has been suggested that my readers may want to participate in this process and perhaps even come up with a name or two, so we will do that as well 🙂

Third, and most importantly because Jade needs new chocolate for Dowser 4, I will be test tasting these:

chocolates bars for Doswer 4

I know I’m such a martyr for my craft. Yes – if you didn’t already know it from my Facebook post – I went a little crazy and dented my credit card pretty hard at Xocolat right before we moved. Did I mention we just picked up and moved to Salt Spring Island? No? Well, we did. It’s an adventure (more on that later).

I will select a chocolate bar a day … or two or three a day if I run into something I don’t like enough to eat plain (I bake with any chocolate I don’t love enough to just eat). I’ll share the bar and my tasting notes on Facebook and do a digest version here.

Fun, yes?

Okay, so it all begins Wednesday with reading Cupcakes (Etc).

I hope you join me!

Sorry … I’ve been sick …

I’ve fallen down on the Writer Wednesday and Fiction Friday posts due to a crazy cold. Gah!

And YES, there is a double paperback giveaway coming – SOON!! I just have to crawl to the post office and get my hands on the pretty books waiting for me there …

Back to regularly scheduled writing and updates tomorrow, I promise. I’m almost done the second draft of Dowser 3!! Maybe I’ll post some teasers this week?? Oh, yes!

Now what photo should I attached here? *digs around in computer vault* How about this snuggle fest?

Image

The Old Man in the Cupboard

I just traded the following series of texts with Michael:

20140107-175224.jpg

Me: (referring to picture above) If I’m very crafty I might figure out how to trap all three of them!

Michael: It looks like Leo is seriously considering joining Parker

Me: Exactly. It’s all going to according to my plan.

Michael: Where is the old man?

Me: In the cupboard. But he did come out and climb in the box first. By the time I thought to grab my phone he was back in the cupboard. I’ve fed him in there twice so far. No shrieking yet today.

Um … yeah. The old man Michael is asking about is our older cat, Darby.

Not either of our fathers.
Ahem.
Just in case you were worried.

And the door to the cupboard is WIDE open. It’s just that a heat duct runs underneath it so it’s very warm, and the old man is losing all his hair because of the steroids he takes for his asthma.

Yeah, I’m still talking about our cat.
Darby.

Not a random old man I’ve got locked in the cupboard.
Just in case you were worried.

Karen’s Trinkets

Karen posted this picture on Facebook for me yesterday. I was thrilled to receive it and Karen was totally cool about me sharing it with the blog.

Karen's Trinket

 

Karen says, “happy day meg! as I am into the part of TRINKETS that Jade is constructing a necklace…I remembered that a couple years ago I constructed a bookmark. I had used an old piece of leather from an ancient coat, an antique earring that was my Mom’s, an angel that was our daughter’s when she was small, and several other old, old trinkets…I wonder if it’s magical!”

Karen – it looks magical to me!! I’m so glad you’re enjoying reading Trinkets (Etc), and thanks for thinking of me (and Jade) – Meg

To begin a new year…

Monday, January 6, 2014. 9 a.m. PST –

I settle down at my desk. It’s been over two weeks since I laid my pen to paper, so I’m eager to dive in but careful in my approach. The day is crisp, literally there is frost coating all the houses that spread between the ocean and my home office window. The sea is flat today, but ready, posed to roll. The craggy mountains that carve through the light blue sky are snowcapped. Wisps of clouds colour but don’t dampen the horizon.

I open my notebook to see where I’ve left my work in progress. Parker, the golden Persian, snuggles next to me on the reclaimed 100-year-old fir desk. He curls his paw around my left arm. I read through the first two handwritten paragraphs in the notebook and try to strikeout a sentence only to realize there is no ink in my pen. Of course, I need ink. A fountain pen doesn’t fare well from two weeks of neglect.

I fill the pen with green ink.

Now I am ready.

Life is damn fine in 2014.

Let’s see what shit I can get Jade into today.

green inked tissues and pen

The role of screenplay structure in a 1st draft novel [repost]

I don’t usually talk much about the actual craft of writing here … I just like to write my stories and hope you all like them, but I did write the post below, on request, when I was first marketing my novel, After The Virus, in 2011. Now, I am reposting it here by (another) request.

So, any writers wondering how I transitioned from screenplays to novels and what I retained along the way, hopefully you find something interesting below.

Any readers bored by such things, I’ll have something new for you to read VERY soon!!

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*REPOSTED from June 2011 from a Guest Blog Post*

 The role of structure in a 1st draft novel by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Transitioning from writing screenplays into writing novels has been an exciting and daunting task. Exciting, because, after writing screenplays for over 10 years, I fell into writing my first novel, After The Virus, and the writing just flowed. Daunting because now I have to follow up and recapture the magic I found while writing After The Virus.

When I write a screenplay I rely heavily on structure to craft the 1st draft, and I mostly adhere to the Syd Field school. I don’t even write a single word, other than jotting down scene ideas or bits of dialogue when they come to me, until I have the entire screenplay plotted out. But, I didn’t craft my novel, After The Virus, in this same fashion, though it is quite structured (as that is just in my nature), however its structure ended up, by necessity I now believe, being flexible.

So as I jump into another novel (or 4) I’ve been thinking about screenplay structure and how it applies, for me, to novel writing. Here are the elements that I think are most helpful when crafting a 1st draft.

1.Three Acts – Beginning, Middle & End – this might be a no brainer for most writers, but it is odd how many stories don’t actually have a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. It is amazing how many novels and/or movies I have read/seen that don’t end well (God, that can ruin a story!!).

So pull out a piece of paper, divide it lengthwise into three sections, and jot down a sentence to describe the beginning of your story (aka your set-up), the middle (aka the confrontation) and the end (aka the resolution). By the way, each sentence should be about the plot not about the characters feelings or thoughts — what happens?

2. The beginning – start with the The Inciting Incident – what is the one action or plot point without which your entire story could not actually take place? Start writing there, and don’t worry about an introductory chapter or setting up the story. What propels the plot? What pushes your protagonist through the story?

After you’ve compelled your 1st draft and you still think you need an introductory chapter, write it in your 2nd draft pass. But start in action, and you’ll suck your reader right into the story. The character background, environmental elements, and other introductory items can be worked into the action of the plot as you move forward.

 If your story is a chess game, you lead with your queen not one of your pawns. Pawns are follow-up, development. Start strong. Play your queen.

[spoiler alert] In my novel, After The Virus, the inciting incident is when my main protagonist, Rhiannon chooses and then succeeds in escaping her captors. Without this action (aka plot point) none of the remaining story is possible. Note my emphasis on the protagonist choosing to act, there aren’t many stories that can function well with a passive protagonist (there are, of course, always great exceptions to this and any other rule).

3. The middle – also known as the place where writers go to die a slow, painful death – solidify your The Midpoint – this is your hook from which your entire story hangs. If your story was actually hanger this would be the hook that hangs off the closet rod.

The entire first half of your book builds to this point and then something happens that propels us into the second half of the book. This something is directly tied to the main plot and completely changes the game. Someone dies, someone loses, or, in less action driven narratives, someone has a massive epiphany. This is the point of no return. The characters will never, ever be the same and, to repeat myself because I think it is important to stress this point, there is no going back.

 To take this a little bit further, the midpoint is usually tied directly to the inciting incident.

[spoiler alert] The midpoint of my novel, After The Virus, is when the mute child, Snickers, falls in the river and Rhiannon – ever the hero – chooses (again, chooses, and risking her own life) to dive in after the child. How is this tied to the inciting incident? By jumping in the river after Snickers, Rhiannon finds herself entering, under duress of course, the very city she escaped at the beginning of the novel, forcing her to confront the thing she ran away from. This midpoint also causes Will, the secondary protagonist, to step up and spring into action. There is literally no turning back from this point forward for Rhiannon or the plot.

Side note: speaking of being flexible with your 1st draft. What is now the midpoint of my novel (spoiler: Snickers going in the river) I had first thought was my turn into the 3rd Act (The Climax). As I was writing, it became apparent I was wrong and this plot point was actually my midpoint.

4. The ending – ramp up to The Climax – after the midpoint this is what the entire set-up and confrontation of the novel has been building too, and, after this point, it is all resolution, which doesn’t necessarily mean we are in the happily-ever-after section of the story, but that everything that happens after the climax is a reaction to that climax.

This must be a big moment, ideally it should involve all your main characters, and it is (to paraphrase from Save the Cat) always the darkest night of the soul.

[spoiler alert] In After The Virus, the Climax is the moment Rhiannon stops fighting her (second set of) captors, willingly adopts the movie star persona – a mask which she has spent the entire novel attempting to shed – and chooses to face the evil she’s been running from, in order to save the child.

The 3rd Act of After The Virus opens with my absolute favourite scene of the novel. Here is the snippet:

 A brisk, salty wind, they must be very close to the ocean here, blew through the buildings and billowed around and beyond her. The dress was instantly slicked against her. She could feel the light fabric lift about four feet behind her and her hair a similar sail. Her silk-sheathed nipples rose in protest of the chill, and a murmur, punctuated with gasps, rustled through the following crowd. She gritted her teeth at the exposure, at the perceived sexuality, at the perceived vulnerability of an involuntary bodily function.

They reached for her then.

Lining the sides of street, suddenly as far as she could see, they reached fingers for her, but didn’t touch.

She walked like that for a full block, so close she could feel the brush of energy from each fingertip –thousands of fingers.

What was she to them? The time before? Whatever it was, it wasn’t a role she was willing to accept, or that she was even qualified for.

That’s it! Just four elements with which to construct your 1st draft: Three Acts, Inciting Incident, Midpoint, and Climax … just make sure the Inciting Incident, Midpoint, and Climax are all tied together, like knots along the same piece of string.  ETA: I also like my stories to be shaped like a bow … by tying the very first scene to the last in some way  – if I can. This technique will be most obvious in my upcoming release, Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic.

Be flexible, let the writing just flow, and don’t edit yourself … at least not until the 2nd draft!!