Write that good book

July 27, 2016June 27, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 2 Comments

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The final step of the Snowflake Method is to sit down and write the book. By this point, you should know what’s happening in each scene and where each character is development wise. I go through draft by draft, trying to do at minimum a chapter a day. The first draft started super detailed, with nearly complete chapters filled with dialogue, but as the book wore on, the draft got more and more rough as I’d recognize things my outline hadn’t accounted for or places the creative process took over. I’d go back to the appropriate chapters before and make notes to make the changes next draft, then forge on a head. The further I got into the book, the less stable the draft was because at a certain point, everything relies on what comes first. I found myself doing a lot less actual dialogue and opposition and more “And then this thing happens so that happened” summaries between the dialogue and narrative I knew had to be in the scene.

But I had a first draft within a month.

The second draft I focused much more on characters. Because my story is told in dual points of view via first person narrators, I have to take special care that my characters voices never muddle in their POV chapters. I also have to make sure they only know what they know. And I need to make sure the story from their POV is a complete arc without the other POV. The other POV should enhance their story, add detail, but not tell it if that makes sense.

So for draft two, instead of starting chapter 1,2,3 and working my way to the end, I wrote chapters 1, 3, 5, 7, all the way until the end. Once finished with a character, I read through their story, making notes of what needs to be expanded in the other POV and making sure it reads smoothly. Then I took it through writers group and made notes of points where they got confused based on information missing from the other half of the story and made sure to flag those points by making sure either my character was also lost or the scene needed to clarify that section for the first character was really well laid out in the second character’s pov.

Then I did the same thing for the second POV.

This process took a little over a month, but mostly because there were parts where I had to wait on input from others. This draft got rid of all summary and shifted the entire book into story mode. By the time I finished this draft (it’s really more of a combined draft 2, 3, and 4 because I go over it 3 times. First while writing it, then while reviewing it for smoothness, then to make changes based on feedback), I was ready to send it to my editor for content edits. The story goes through two sets of content edits with my publisher, so while I wait to hear back from them, I take it through my writers group in 5,000 word chunks for draft 5. This is by far the longest lasting draft time wise.

Why go through writers group again? I’ve found the more eyes on a story the better. 90% of the time they’re flagging the same things my editor does, but that 10% of the time they catch some random inconsistency or say “hey, wait, I’m confused. Why doesn’t she just xyz” can make or break the story.

This is my favorite part of the whole process. The story just gets better with every draft. And the snowflake method made the earliest part of the process, what’s generally the hardest for me, much, much, much better.

How’s it worked out for you?

Jason and the Argonauts Master Post

July 25, 2016July 5, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 5 Comments

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In an effort to organize my blog a bit better, I’m creating master posts for topics I covered over more than one week of blogging. I’ll get these together and link them somewhere in the menu once I’ve caught up.

Here’s everything I’ve written about Jason and the Argonauts. This set of myths serve as important background for the second and third books in Aphrodite’s trilogy.

So without further ado…

Help me name my next book

July 22, 2016July 4, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 4 Comments

I need help. I cannot for the life of me figure out what to name the third book in Aphrodite’s trilogy. I have a pattern of naming the books after the goddesses’ roles or titles. Persephone/Daughter of the Earth and Sky/The Iron Queen all had meaning to Persephone as a goddess. Aphrodite obviously is Aphrodite’s name, Love and War ties into her being the goddess of Love (as well as her relationship with Ares) but with book three I’m lost. I know I want it to have something to do with Beauty, but beyond that…

Any suggestions?

Writing an Outline in Narrative Description

July 20, 2016July 26, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 1 Comment

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Step nine of the Snowflake Method is to go through each scene you created for the outline, and write a narrative description of what is going to happen in that scene, adding in any dialogue or partially written bits you come up with along the way.

A lot of people skip this step, but for me it’s very important. This is kind of my ultimate, get organized step. I go through the four page summary and pull all the information that has to be in that scene. Then I go through all the paragraph summaries for every character and note what they are doing in the scene, and if they aren’t in the scene what they are doing off screen during the scene, because even if they aren’t present, they still exist.

This is a fantastic way of making sure all the character timelines match up while plugging in all the threads for each subplot and character arc before I get started. As I’m writing that paragraph per scene of x happens and y happens, I often think of something that would have to happen first or would happen as a result of this, click back to my outline, and add it in to the appropriate scene. So a lot of my plot adjustments and practicalities happen before I even start officially writing the story.

This also comes in handy for summarizing my story for my editor or writers group.

This is also a great place to throw your story on the Story Grid, then go through and make sure each scene has all the essential elements to a scene in these summaries before you start writing. This is also a great place to apply the hero’s journey and the Save the Cat structure. You can look at each scene and determine where it fits in literally any plot structure you follow.

The biggest thing this step does for me is defeats the fear of a blank page. When I sit down and start actually writing out the scene, I know exactly what is supposed to go here, and bits of it are already written. It makes it much faster. And it doesn’t kill the creative flow of the story because it takes nothing to click back and adjust the scenes as I go.

Here’s an example:

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Mythology Monday: Otrera

July 18, 2016June 20, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 1 Comment

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“There you are!” Otrera exclaimed, crashing down beside me in a spray of sand.

I jerked back, startled, shutting the journal before she could catch a glimpse of the crazed scrawl.

“How was your run?” I asked, sitting up.

“Great.” Otrera managed around a gasp for breath. “Except I misjudged the distance. Got all excited thinking I was done and—” she drew in another breath. “Ugh.” She dropped backward, hand hitting the beach towel with a thump. “I’m gonna need a minute.”

I reached into my bag and grabbed her metal water bottle. “Here.”

“Lifesaver,” she gasped and took a huge gulp. “Whatcha working on?”

“Just journaling.” I tucked the book into my beach bag. “Jason said a blog was too high risk no matter how private I set it, so I’m going old school.”

Otrera nodded around another sip of water. “Cool. Is Glauce meeting us tonight, or—”

I shook my head, and made a futile attempt to brush the sand off the blanket. “Jason’s testing every inch of the shield. Again.”

“Poor thing,” Otrera clucked, eyes sliding to the volleyball playing demigods down the beach as a particularly large burst of laughter reached our blanket. “He’s working you two to death.”

I shrugged. “He’s starting to ease off now that we’ve got the evacuation drill down to a science. He’s talking about taking a few days then starting random drills.”

“You can’t keep doing that, Medea. We don’t know enough about how this stuff works.”

“I’m fine.” A strand of dark hair worked free from my pony tail, and whipped around in the wind. Irritated, I tucked it behind my ear.

“I’ve seen you afterward. You’re not fine.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Otrera was in her mid-twenties, making her one of the oldest people on the island. And that meant something to her. She flip-flopped between mothering Glauce and I, and just hanging out like a regular person.

The first time she saw Jason kiss me, she’d grabbed my arm so tight I was sure her fingers left bruises, made some excuse to Jason, then marched me off in the opposite direction and told me in no uncertain terms I didn’t have to do anything with him that I wasn’t comfortable with. The age difference between us still made her squeamish. But now that Jason and I were older news, she seemed to be coming to terms with it.

“Well if she’s not meeting us, I guess there’s no reason to wait,” Otrera decided, climbing to her feet and further upsetting the blanket. “I need a shower.” She shoved my shoulder when I nodded. “Want to hang out at my place until the dining hall opens or were you sticking around here?”

~@~

Otrera is a new character who will be introduced in Love and War. Unlike almost every other named character on the Island of the DAMNED, she’s not an Argonaut, so I haven’t talked about her yet on this blog.

Otrera was a Queen of the Amazons and Hippolyta’s (the much more famous Amazon queen) mother. She was either a consort or a daughter of Ares, though many myths place her as the daughter of the Eastern wind. She is credited with the creation of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and the creation of the Amazon nation.

In short, she was an awesome figure in mythology. Unfortunately, she was later killed by Bellerophon (he’s interesting, I’ll be sure to talk about him in another mythology Monday).

I wrote Otrera into my story because I needed another female demigod, and there aren’t that many to choose from. But I’m glad I chose her, because she’s interesting. There’s not a ton of information out there on her, but what I have been able to dig up from research tells me she’s fierce.

Happy Ten Year Anniversary to me!

July 15, 2016June 17, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

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Ten years ago, today, I was late to my own wedding.

Seriously.

It’s been a fantastic decade with my amazing husband. So, I’m going to be hopping offline for the rest of the day to celebrate it with him.

Outlining

July 13, 2016June 16, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

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Step eight of the Snowflake Method is to break that four page summary down line by line into the scenes needed to tell that story, and turn those into a spreadsheet outline. Use one line from each scene.

Make just one line for each scene. In one column, list the POV character. In another (wide) column, tell what happens. If you want to get fancy, add more columns that tell you how many pages you expect to write for the scene.

Lost? Scrivener does this really well in a nifty setting called Outliner.

I was nervous about doing this part of the snowflake, because I hate spreadsheets. But now that it’s done, I can see how valuable it is as I move into writing the first draft. I did it just like Mr. Ingermanson (the snowflake guy) said. I took each line of the four page synopsis and tried to figure out what kind of scenes were necessary to tell that part of the story. Then I divided up the scenes into chapters and put them in folders labeled chapter 1, 2, 3, ect.

Here’s an example from Book 3 of the Aphrodite trilogy.

Major spoiler warning since book 2 isn’t even out yet.

Here’s a paragraph of the four page outline.

(1)Aphrodite stranded herself on the island of the DAMNED despite being unable to communicate with the gods or having any access to her own powers. She’s fished out of the water by the demigods and thrown into a hospital room with Adonis, presumably for a check up, but there are guards at the door.

Scene wise this breaks down as follows:

Aphrodite finds herself stranded on the island of the DAMNED. I’m going ahead and including her being fished out of the water here rather than the next scene, because the setting changes after she’s fished out of the water, so that’s a natural break.

Scene 2 is her being thrown into a hospital room with Adonis and discovering guards at the door.

Now, I have duel points of view going on, so my second paragraph focuses on my second POV character. Meaning Aphrodite’s scene 1 doesn’t happen first in the book.

Here’s what that looks like in spread sheet form.

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I’ve grouped these two scenes into a chapter. In bold, you have the brief description of the scenes. Beneath that you have the lines from the four page summary summarizing what’s happening in the scene. The next column says who the POV character is for the scene. The next column tells me who is in the scene. Next column is setting, and what day it is in the story. That’s for my benefit, because I need to keep track of my timeline. Scrivener also tells me how many words I’ve written in each scene and what draft I’m in. You may find you need more or less columns based on your style and the demands of the story.

As book 2 goes through edits that impact book 3, it’s easy for me to go through and adjust this outline. I can see it all in a glance, I can make the changes quick and easy, and when I write the actual scenes, I know exactly what needs to happen in each scene.

Now, I’m a discovery writer by nature, so when I’m writing, my characters tend to surprise me. Or I think of some amazing plot gem that changes everything. It’s super easy to click back to the outline and note the adjustments that need to be made and pinpoint any already written scenes that need to be adjusted beyond outline mode.

One thing that is not happening is a major problem I used to have. I’m never opening my word processor and going, “Okay, I know what just happened, and what has to happen in a few chapters, but how do I get there.” I’ve already figured that out, slowly in a painless process. Will it change, absolutely. But I don’t have anymore days just staring and wondering what to write anymore.

Mythology Monday: Medea

July 11, 2016June 20, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 2 Comments

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*Spoiler warnings for anyone who has not read Aphrodite. This is a unedited draft of one of the first chapters of Love and War. It will change before the final version comes out. Enjoy!*

They wanted to call it hope. I stared at the line I’d written as I bunched up the fluffy, white pillow beneath me, trying find a comfortable position on my bed that didn’t make writing impossible. Scratching out the line, I frowned, mulling over where to begin.

This isn’t a story, I wrote. And I’m not going to tell it like one, even if I did get a fairy tale ending. It’s a memory. One I never wanted to revisit, only now I have to.

Sometimes I get paranoid. Letting out a long breath, I glanced behind me toward the bathroom where the empty box loomed. I think the worst things. But only because I’ve forgotten how lucky I am that he saved me. I’m better off, no matter what he’s done.

Slipping off the bed, I walked across the cool tile of the bedroom floor and closed the aged, wooden door to the bathroom so I could no longer see the box. Then I returned to my journal.

I should have known. He never stopped pestering me about my decision. Maybe if I’d paid attention, I’d have noticed missing pills or poked holes or something. But I would notice something like that, wouldn’t I? Gods, I’m crazy. Completely crazy. There was nothing to notice.

But…

Gritting my teeth, I wrote, No. I’m not focusing on that right now. I need to look back. Back to that awful day when they found out I was a match for Absyrtus’s bone marrow. The ice cream, toys, and constant cajoling. My guilt. I was scared. The procedure sounded painful. But I didn’t want my (step) brother to die, so I agreed.

And yeah, the surgery hurt, but they loved me for it. Everyone was so happy. So hopeful, so damn proud of me and back then that mattered. Mom took the whole week off work. I still remember how happy I was snuggling in bed with her while cartoons played on the screen. How special I felt. And then he got better. Not just a little better, but a full on, complete cure by the next blood draw. Even his scars were gone. That’s when they realized how special I really was.

I swallowed hard, flipping on to my back to stare up at the palm leaf blades of the ceiling fan making their lazy circle. “Just write it, Medea.” Drawing in a deep breath, I shifted so I could return pen to page.

That’s when Mom got greedy.

My phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen and saw a set of coordinates with the number of passengers. Two more than Jason left with, always a good sign. Closing my journal, I slid my pen through the little elastic loop and set the leather bound book on the bed beside me.

“Okay.” I pushed myself to a sitting position, crossing my legs. The beige duvet crinkled beneath me. Drawing in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and focused.

Boats were hard. The first couple times I tried relocating an entire boat, I fried the engines. But Jason was nothing if not persistent, and money was no object when charm was involved. We could replace whatever we broke.

The tricky part was not accidentally breaking the people I dragged along. I’d never done that. Keeping everyone intact seemed mostly instinctual. But the worry nagged at the back of my mind that one day, I’d ‘port someone to me and they’d pop up looking like a misshapen blob of flesh with limbs sticking out in all the wrong places and upside down faces.

My stomach lurched. Wow, I needed to not think that visual ever again. Particularly not now. Drawing in a deep breath, I forced my mind to clear, visualizing the boat and the little golden people on board. I couldn’t see them, not really. But I could sense them, and that was almost the same. Two unfamiliar…not shapes, more like impressions, were on board the boat.

Nails biting into the palms of my hand, I drew them to me. Well, not to me. A boat crashing through the wood plank walls of my bedroom wall would be problematic on a lot of levels. Fortunately, the shield stopped anything from actually ‘porting onto the island. The boat would arrive just far enough away to avoid slamming into the invisible barrier before Jason could signal Glauce to take the shield down.

Hot washes of agony sang through my nervous system as I yanked the vessel to the edge of the shield. Oh gods. Gasping, I lurched off the bed and into the bathroom just in time to heave my guts into the toilet. Pregnancy or teleportation? Ugh.

Jason kept saying using our powers was like strengthening a muscle. But he was wrong. Maybe my accuracy was improving with practice, but my body wasn’t any happier tolerating the strain of using that much power no matter how much I practiced.

My gaze landed on the trashcan filled with nearly a dozen pregnancy tests mocking me with their lines of blue, pink, yeses, and pregnants. My stomach lurched again.

Spent, I pulled my dark hair into a ponytail and carefully gathered all of the evidence into a plastic bag. I couldn’t risk the tests or empty box being in the house. Jason couldn’t find out. On a whim, I grabbed my journal, locked the door of my cabin and hurried down the street. I’d swing by the hospital while Jason oriented the newbies to the island. He’d be busy the rest of the day. As long as I put in an appearance at dinner, he’d never know anything was amiss.

I circled behind the hospital and tossed the bag into the medical waste bin, ignoring the twinge of guilt for the improper sorting. Trash collection on the island was a complicated affair. It didn’t take much to screw up completely and send us drowning in garbage.

A flurry of voices from around the building disrupted my thoughts.

“Get the doors!” Jason called.

Rushing to the front of the hospital, I grabbed one of the doors just as Otrera grabbed the other. She nodded at me over the stretcher that was being wheeled in.

I gasped when I saw the girl on the stretcher. Her face was a mass of bruising and swelling, her dress crusted in blood. The sheer violence of her wounds twisted my stomach.

“What happened?” I asked Otrera, rushing into the hospital on her heels.

“Tantalus went off the rails,” she panted, rushing through the lobby. “You know that call Jason got from Tantalus last night about the gods taking our place and using glamours?” She met my eyes, and I nodded, though I hadn’t heard about that call at all. “He thought she was one of them.”

“…presenting with broken ribs, lacerations, and internal bleeding,” a person in scrubs yelled as they whisked the girl down the hall.

An unfamiliar demigod, his face an identical mass of swollen bruises, tried to follow the stretcher, but the nurse pushed him back before hurrying through the set of swinging doors.

“…can’t go back there,” Jason’s calm voice reasoned. “You’re injured. We need to—”

“I’m not leaving her!” the demigod protested in perfect Greek.

Jason couldn’t have understood what the demigod said, but he moved in front of the swinging doors, speaking in calm and soothing tones. “She’s going into surgery, there’s nothing you can do for her right now. Let’s get you taken care of, and—”

He moved to get past Jason, but Jason could be an effective wall when he had to be.

“We can take him to the operating theater,” I suggested, approaching from behind the demigod. “You can’t cross that line,” I motioned to the red line in front of the doorway in front of him. “But there’s a room upstairs where you can see where they’re prepping her.”

The demigod whirled on me and I jerked back. His face clouded in confusion when he saw me, a pretty common response since I’d come to the island. What are you? The quick once over seemed to demand. You’re not one of us.

And I wasn’t a demigod. Not exactly.

“You could watch,” I prodded, intentionally misinterpreting his look of incomprehension, switching to Greek. “You’ll be able to see her the entire time.” Probably not proper protocol, but I had a way of making people bend the rules.

“That’s a great idea,” Jason said at the same time, moving between me and the angry looking demigod. “You’ll be able to see her the whole time,” he explained, echoing me in English, “And we can get someone to patch you up.” He flagged down a passing nurse to charm her into making it happen.

I stared at Jason for a moment, mind flashing back to that trashcan full of pregnancy tests. Did you do this to me on purpose or am I just being paranoid? “Patched up?” I asked instead, eyes dropping to the hand the demigod kept pushed to his side. “What—”

The demigod moved his arm and I drew in a sharp breath when I saw the long, shallow gash on his side. “Yeah, that’s probably going to need some stitches.”

Mollified, the demigod let me lead him to the windowed room, looking over the operating room. “Are you a doctor?” he asked when I pressed some gauze over his cut.

“I’m seventeen.” I laughed. “I’m lucky they trust me with band aids.”

Jason paused in the doorway, flanked by a doctor and nurse. “Medea,” he called from the doorway. “Let’s give them some space to work, yeah?”

“I’ll be back soon,” I promised. “And don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”

He nodded, eyes never leaving the girl lying on the table below.

The second Jason and I stepped out of the operating theater, I turned to Jason and forced myself to focus on the crisis at hand. “What happened?”

Jason leaned against the wall, hands resting on the wooden railing. “Tantalus thought she was one of them in disguise. Last night, he called ranting and raving about how the gods are using glamours to replace us and send us down to the Underworld to infiltrate our camp. He said some new goddess threw him in Tartarus and Ares was walking around wearing his face.”

Tartarus? Yeah, sure. “Tartarus has cell reception?”

“I know, right.” Jason snorted, but couldn’t quite manage to laugh. There was nothing funny about this. He glanced down at the floor, squinting against the harsh light that bounced off the tile. “He was not forthcoming on how he supposedly got out of the Underworld, much less back onto a moving ship.”

“He couldn’t have.” Tantalus was the only other demigod who could teleport. But his ability was granted by Zeus and had weird limitations, like he couldn’t be touching land or water and he couldn’t bring anyone with him. “Landing on a moving target, that’s…impossible. He’s got to be lying.”

“I know,” Jason agreed. “He clearly snapped. I told him to evacuate the other demigods on the ship, scrap the mission, and not to do anything until I got to the meeting place.” He said, referring to an otherwise empty island we met all the newbies at before ‘porting here. He glanced at me in mute appeal. “I couldn’t risk him losing it out there and bringing the whole Pantheon down on our heads.”

“You made the right call,” I assured him.

“Except that he didn’t listen.” Jason gripped the wooden railing so tight his knuckles went white. “Our people are still on that boat and all I’ve managed to piece together from Adonis is that Tantalus thought he and Elise were gods in glamours and nearly killed them both.”

I tilted my head. “He told you that?”

“In bits and pieces, I’d like a more complete picture, but…” Jason let out a frustrated sigh. “Getting that much out of him wasn’t easy.”

Language barriers tended to have that effect. I’d taught Jason a little Greek, but he was by no means fluent. “I’ll talk to him,” I promised, glancing back at the door to the operating theater.

“Thanks.” Relief was evident in Jason’s voice. “I don’t think I’m Adonis’s favorite person right now. Find out anything you can. At this point, I don’t even know if I can trust Tantalus’s report that there was a goddess on the ship. Narcissus and the others will be back in a few days. Hopefully we’ll get a full report from them, but in the meantime…”

“We have to assume the worst.” Crossing the hall to lean on the wall next to Jason, I laid my head on his shoulder. “You need to tell everyone else what happened. We’re not in any shape to face the Pantheon right now, but if Tantalus set them off, we might not have the luxury of waiting anymore. They need to know, Jason.”

“I know.” He sounded overwhelmed.

“Where is Tantalus now?”

Jason squeezed my shoulder. “Hell if I know.”

“Do you want me to summon him?” I winced at the thought. Summoning the boat took a lot out of me. “Find out for sure? I’ll need some time to recover, but—”

Jason shook his head. “Not yet. The last thing we need is for Adonis,” he jutted his finger toward the door we’d just walked out of, “to see Tantalus and completely lose it. Do you know how damaging this could be to our cause?” He clenched his fists. “We’re not supposed to get hurt by each other. I hate to ask…but if you healed her then—”

“Absolutely not.” I shook my head, ignoring the guilt blooming in my chest. “Never again.”

“Okay,” Jason said.

I couldn’t suppress my sigh of relief even though I knew he was never going to strap me down and take my blood. “Tantalus is insane, not stupid.” I reached down and laced my fingers through Jason’s to give him a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll hole up somewhere like he always does and howl at the moon for a while. He’s not going to come back here anytime soon or near any of the demigods. He went against your orders.” I eyed Jason. “Didn’t he?”

“Of course he did!” Jason pulled away from me in shock. “Do you honestly think I’d condone that?” He pointed toward the operating room. “I told Tantalus not to do anything until I got there and evaluated the situation. So what the hell was he thinking? Can you imagine if he’d been right? If he’d done that to an actual goddess?”

Shivering, I stared down at the shadows we cast on the floor. “We’d be dead by dawn.”

“Ah, it’s not as bad as all that.” He shot me a sideways grin and recaptured my hand. “I’ll need you to summon Tantalus eventually, but let’s talk to Narcissus and the others first. Hopefully Elise will wake up by the time they get back and we can find out a bit more about what set Tantalus off. In the meantime, I’ve got to call a conference. Can you wait with them?” He motioned to the operating room and gave me an apologetic look. “I know you hate hospitals.”

I flushed. He’d rescued me months ago, and I was still having a hard time getting used to such thoughtfulness. “I’ll be fine.” Feeling guilty for doubting him, I drew him to me and planted a kiss on his lips. “You take care of yourself.”

He grinned, the stress on his face melting away. “You, too.”

After betraying her father, killing her brother, helping the Argonauts survive and complete their quest, killing Pelias so Jason could rule, restoring Jason’s father’s vitality, and bearing Jason two to six children, Medea’s husband decided to marry a younger, richer, better woman named Creusa, sometimes called Glauce, the daughter of the king of Corinth, Creon.

Medea was pissed. She confronted Jason, who blamed the whole thing on Aphrodite making Medea fall in love with him in the first place. Which, is actually true mythologically speaking, but it was true back when she was useful to him, too. Jason apparently didn’t harbor any ill will toward Medea. He was willing to set her up in a little house with the kids and send her money periodically. But he basically claimed their marriage didn’t count.

Medea got her revenge. She gave the younger bride a cursed wedding dress as a gift that stuck to her body and burned her to death when she put it on. (Seriously, why hasn’t Medea been featured on Supernatural?) Creon tried to save his daughter and ended up burning to death as well.

Then Medea either accidentally killed her children, the people of Corinth killed her children as revenge, or she gave a long monologue and intentionally killed her children depending on the source. One son, Thessalus survived and became a king.

Afterward, she fled to Athens in a chariot of dragons sent from her grandpa, Helios. On her way, she encountered Hercules and healed him for the murder of Iphutus. Herc gave her a place to stay in Thebes, but she was eventually kicked out by the citizens.

She continued to Athens where she got married to a guy named Aegeus. They had a son named Medus and for a minute things looked like they would go to the happily ever after realm, but then Medea remembered she was a Greek myth and thus could not have a happy ending. Aegeus’ son long lost son Theseus (yeah, that one) showed up. Medea, nervous about her son’s inheritance, insisted he was a fraud and convinced her husband to poison him. At the last second, Aegeus recognized the sword in Theseus’s hand and knocked the cup of poison away from him.

Medea fled home to Colchis and discovered that her father had been deposed by her uncle Perses. She killed her uncle and gave the Kingdom back to dad, settling her debt with him once and for all. She lived out her life in her home and eventually died of old age. Jason died alone and unhappy when the stern of the Argo fell on him, crushing him to death.

Medea is always looked at as a villain in Greek mythology, and don’t get me wrong, killing children is bad. But Hercules killed his wife and children, too, and he’s looked at as a hero. Women in Greek mythology aren’t one dimensional, but society works really hard to paint them that way. Persephone is always the victim, Medea always the murdering mother, Hera, the jealous, insane lady, Aphrodite the divine whore. It’s why I’m rewriting the myths. These women had depth, it’s obvious from their stories, but over time it’s been stripped away from them.

I hope you enjoy my take on Medea as a character in my upcoming novel, Love and War.

Recovering from a tonsillectomy

July 10, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / 2 Comments

I’m combining the days after recovery into large groups, because otherwise things are going to get pretty repetitive.

Pain

Day 3: Day three was pretty rough from a pain perspective. Bella didn’t want to get out of bed for a few hours on Sunday morning, even after her pain meds kicked in. She kept complaining that her head, tummy, and throat hurt. Thanks to the blogs I wrote covering day three post op for me, I knew to expect swelling on these days and I knew eating was going to get harder.

She perked up in the afternoon, and got downright hyper that night. When she finally got to sleep, she slept really well.

Day 4: Another rough morning, but not as bad as yesterday. She’s still complaining about her head and stomach. In the afternoon, she was hit with intense eat pain that the ibuprofen and her pain meds didn’t even touch. We did all the tricks, gum chewing, cold and hot compresses, everything. She was still miserable for the whole day.

That night we did take her to see fireworks and that got her mind off it for a little while, but all round, a rough day.

Day 5: Slept through the night without any pain medicine, but work up the next morning in agony. She took her medicine, but again, the biggest issue, the ear pain, didn’t really seem to be helped by the medicine. She felt better after breakfast (I think the chewing does help), but not by much. Watched a lot of movies today and snuggled.

Day 6-7: Woke up fine, was fine all day except night time

Day 8: Did fine for morning, had a rough afternoon and a rough night. Scabs look like they came off, so that’s to be expected.

Day 9-10: I think we’re over the worst of it. She still hurts sometimes, but mostly at night and by far less than she used to.

Food

For breakfast pretty much every day, Bella ate eggs, greek yogurt, and a banana. That’s a lot of chewing, so I made sure her pain meds had plenty of time to kick in before I fed her breakfast. She tended to eat the yogurt first, so she had something on her stomach. Then take her morning dose of pain killers or ibuprofen, and then by the time I cooked the eggs and got my breakfast on the table, she was ready for her eggs and banana.

For lunch Bella ate shaped pastas with different soft veggies mixed in. Different sauces gave her some variety.

For dinner, Bella had soups or mashed potatoes. She doesn’t like soup much, so she didn’t eat much, but by dinner, she wasn’t eating much anyway. It gets harder to chew as the day goes on. I made sure to include a smoothie or a carnation instant breakfast with her dinner so what she drank had some nutritional value.

Getting her to drink was the hardest thing. I ended up just having to do a verbal reminder to drink a sip of water or Gatorade every five to ten minutes. Between meals, she had ice cream or popsicles, so hopefully her throat was staying moist and that was doing something to hydrate her.

Entertainment

For the first three days after surgery, we stayed home. She watched a season of How to Train Your Dragon: Race to the Edge, played minecraft, and School of Dragons. When she got restless with screen time, I had puzzles, board games, worksheets, and girl scout activities to do. The more time went on, the faster she cycled from one to another, getting bored faster and faster.

So on day four, incidentally the fourth of July, we started small outings. She went to a fireworks show on the fourth, and over the next few days we left for quiet, indoor activities like puppet shows, movies, and such.

I’m going to stop blogging now, because at this point it’s getting pretty repetitive, and she should be fully recovered within the next few days. If anything crazy happens, I’ll mention it. But for the purposes of helping parents know what to expect, this should be plenty.

I’m happy to answer any questions.

Writing on Wednesday: The Snowflake Step 7

July 6, 2016July 7, 2016 / kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

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Step seven of the snowflake method cycles back to characters and create full fledged character charts for each character. I actually flip-flopped this step and step five when I snowflake. I did the charts first, then did the one-page synopsis of their version of events. But that’s just me.

There are a ton of character charts you can download to give templates. The important things to remember to include history, motivation, goal, and how the character will change by the end of the novel. Some of those you should have from step three, but this is your chance to expand. All the appearance stuff is going to vary based on the author. You can get as in depth or shallow as you like. I tend to hit hair, eye, and skin color, build, and distinguishing features. I also do habits, mannerism, and personality. These descriptors help me to say consistent and help me see the character.

Here’s an example of a character chart from the third book in the Aphrodite trilogy. I’m leaving off the history, motivation, ect to avoid spoilers. Those would be in paragraph form.

Screen Shot 2016-06-14 at 3.26.51 PM

Habits/Mannerisms:
Rocking on her feet, pushing her hair behind her ears, biting her lip, twirling
flowers
Likes/Dislikes:
Hades, her friends, doctor who, anime, plant life. She doesn’t like horror movies,
getting sweaty, getting talked down to, or being in the dark.

The main template comes from Belinda Crawford here: http://belindacrawford.com/2012/12/27/5-more-scrivener-templates/

I made some adjustments to the character sheet, which you can check out here. Character Sketch