Meet Sharay's love interest, Guethyn

The Romance scene contest is coming this Sunday. In preparation, yesterday you met Sharay, the main character from my upcoming novel, Carry on the Flame. Now, let me introduce you to Guethyn, her romantic interest (that's putting it mildly!).

Guethyn Sulwyn is the grandson of the elder, eccentric wizard, Dillon. It's through Dillon that Guethyn meets Sharay. Guethyn is a university student in marine biology. He is passionate about his chosen career, and there's a lot at stake for him to finish his degree. He's tall, with shoulder length tawny colored hair, and clear blue eyes the color of the ocean he studies. Guethyn has a past he's running from. Meeting Sharay won't let him forget.

Guethyn is Welsh, born in the mystical mountains of Wales, the western coastal country of the United Kingdom. His name in Welsh means: Guethyn - dark skinned; Sulwyn - fair sun.

Meet Sharay and Guethyn together tomorrow!

Meet my main character - Sharay

The romance excerpt contest I mentioned in my last post asks for novel snippets about love in its many forms. Romantic, yes, but inclusive of love that may be cozy, complicated, new, old, platonic, mysterious, tension filled, warm. I will post my scene this Sunday. First I 'd like you to meet Carry on the Flame: Destiny's Call main character, Sharay.

Sharay has been chosen. But nobody told her.

Modern day Glastonbury, England holds the key to an ancient prophecy. It had been foretold that a young priestess would be born to help humankind through the dark turbulence before the birth of a golden era. Such are the times of today's world.

Sharay loses her parents in a car crash before she can be trained in the magical Celtic, Goddess tradition that will prepare her for her destiny. For the next seven years she lives under the guardianship of her weak-willed Uncle Larry and her undermining Aunt Phoebe. A powerful priestess in her own right, Phoebe is obsessed with desire for the wealth and power Sharay inherited. Embittered, she turns to Black Magic and uses it against Sharay.

Phoebe ruthlessly belittles Sharay’s spontaneous visions of the Goddess as crazy and misguided, causing Sharay to distrust and reject the Goddess. The only thing Sharay cherishes is the one memento of her parents she has been allowed to keep – a photograph of the three of them by the ocean.

When Sharay turns seventeen, Phoebe takes her to a psychiatrist who misinterprets Sharay’s visions of the Goddess as psychotic hallucinations and has her institutionalized. Alone and afraid, Sharay doubts herself and her magical abilities. Until she meets the eccentric elder wizard, Dillon...and his grandson, the mysterious and attractive Guethyn.

Romance scene

Gabriela at An Aspiring Writer's World blog has enlisted the help of agent Weronika Janczuk (of the Lynne C. Franklin Agency) to read love scene samples from completed manuscripts, decide on winners, and give great prizes! One of my love-scene excerpts will post to my blog on June 12. Enjoy!

They like me, they really like me!

Yes, I did my happy dance when I got the phone call from Pacific Northwest Writers Association, telling me that my manuscript submission for my newest novel, Carry on the Flame: Destiny's Call (to be released August 1st) is a finalist in their annual contest for 2011. I danced a little jig around the living room with my husband, followed of course by our cats, who jumped and meowed beside us. The first words that popped into my head were Sally Field’s 1985 Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actress in “Places in the Heart.” She said, You like me, you really like me!  (true quote – “I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”) I felt a kinship with Sally Field’s words, even more so given the title of the movie that won the Oscar for her - "Places in the Heart." The theme of my novel is about the heart, about how love is the ultimate magic.

Being a finalist in a writers contest is by no means the equivalent of an Oscar…but wait a minute…an author is an artist, as an actor is an artist. And achievements are the honey dew in life, meant to be savored, are they not? So, I savor this.

As a matter of fact, there are some other Oscar acceptance speeches that I resonate with.

There is the one by Robin Williams, who was voted best supporting actor for Good Will Hunting in 1998. Robin said "Most of all I want to thank my father, up there, the man who, when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, "Wonderful, just have a back up profession like welding.'" Okay, what author hasn't thought that or been told that? Well, maybe not quite a back up career as a welder, but you can fill in the blank.

I was touched by Shirley MacLaine's speech when she won Best Actress for the 1983 film "Terms of Endearment. "Films and life are like clay, waiting for us to mold it," she said. "And when you trust your own insides and that becomes achievement, it's a kind of principle that seems to me is at work with everyone. God bless that principle. God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it." And then she added: "I deserve this."

So, taking my cue from Shirley - I deserve this. And this is my acceptance speech.

My Characters talk to me

Most authors know this phenomena. Most readers have heard authors speak of it. Our characters are alive, ever developing, always distinct in our minds. They talk to us. Tell us what they want to say, what they want to happen to them in our stories.

Often, as I lay in bed just about to fall asleep, I hear them. They’re insistent. I used to call it my inspiration, my muse, my creative juices. I learned it was really these lively characters talking to me.

I keep a pen and paper by my bed. No microphone or recording for me. Writing what I hear grounds it down, makes it real. I laugh because what often happens is the minute I put pen and paper aside and turn off the light, another wonderful tid-bit emerges. It happens again and again. Once the proverbial door is open, they all want their say. This can go on for an a half hour or more. After the first few minutes, I have learned to simply get up and go to my office to properly write things down, so I’m not swamped by small pieces of paper filled with clumsy scribbled notes.

In my newest novel, Carry on the Flame: Part one Destiny’s Call (to be released August 1, 2011), the main character is a young priestess in Glastonbury, England named Sharay. She’s haunted my near sleep state for a long time. After I finished my manuscript she was quiet, yet still there. With the novel's imminent release, her voice has become louder.  She wants an interview with herself, a book trailer, maybe even a sequel. She doesn’t let me sleep.

Mary Magdalene - book titles worth looking into

Here are the titles of some of my favorite books I recommend that deal with the Sacred Feminine, particularly as She is embodied by Mary Magdalene. You’ll find some of your classic favorites…are there any you’d like to recommend and add to the list?

Mary Magdalene

Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln

Mary Magdalene: Beyond the Myth - Esther De Boer

Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine - Bart D. Ehrman   

The Magdalen Manuscript - Tom Kenyon and Judi Sion

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle - Karen L. King

The Moon Under Her Feet – Clysta Kinstler (a novel)

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene - Jean-Yves LeLoup

'The Secret Magdalene - Ki Longfellow   (novel)

 I Remember Union: The Story of Mary Magdalene - Flo Aeveia Magdalena

St. Mary Magdalene - Tau Malachi 

The Church of Mary Magdalene: The Sacred Feminine and the Treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau - Jean Markale

The Expected One and The Book of Love - Kathleen McGowan (novels)

The Gospels of Mary: the Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene the Companion of Jesus" - Marvin Meyer and Esther De Boer

The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail - Margaret Starbird

(Starbird has also written "The Goddess in the Gospels" and”Magdalene's Lost Legacy" and many more.) 

The Underground Stream: Esoteric Tarot Revealed" - Christine Payne-Towler (emphasis on Gnostic, Holy Blood, Magdalene themes)

I read a quote from Anais Nin. And I copied it down because it intrigued me. "The role of the writer is not to say what all can say but what we are unable to say."

The next day I found another fascinating perspective on authors in an article in the New York Sunday Times, October 2, 2010, by Michael Cunningham, entitled "Found in Translation." He speaks of how an author's finished manuscript is but a rough translation of the novel we'd intended to write. He says our novels are a "cathedral made of fire."

I had to ask myself - is my novel a cathedral made of fire? I hope to God someone thinks it is. And that it expresses, as Anais Nin says, what we as humans are normally unable to articulate. That was certainly my intention. And even though my novel's pages were rewritten so many times I can't even count, its essence and its message remains.

So, maybe there are several ways I could have said what I was inspired to say in my novels. And several ways to allow a translators freedom. whether it be a literal translation or a reader's interpretation. I'm no longer striving for perfection. Simply a cathedral made of fire.