Weird Word Wednesday

Acock

acock

adjective or adverb \ə-ˈkäk\

Definition of ACOCK

:  being in a cocked position

First Known Use of ACOCK

1846

 

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

Does a having a creative mind come at a price?

In light of the latest actor or creative talent to die from a drug overdose, I started thinking about the high number of creative people that die young from an overdose or suffer from depression or other mental condition.
In my own experience writing songs and now stories, I have always felt that I have one foot in another world when in the creative process. I don’t know if this is some kind of magic or if I am drawing on a higher power when writing a song or story, but there is something that can’t be fully explained that is present during the creation process. I wonder if creative people straddle that line between the living and the dead and if they don’t have something to anchor them to the land of the living, they can slip away.
If you think about it anyone who acts or writes has to be a little bit different from a normal person. I always feel a little disconnected from everything around me as if my thoughts are stuck in another place. This happens more often when I am deep into a story. I hear dialog in my head. I visualize scenes. Some people would call this madness. Maybe some creative minds have to rely on drugs and alcohol to cope with this.
The Irish myth of the Leanan Sidhe comes to mind. She is usually depicted as a beautiful muse, offering inspiration in exchange for love and devotion. Unfortunately, according to the legend, the artist goes mad and dies young.
I’m lucky to have anchors to this world; otherwise I would probably lose my grip on reality because my fantasy worlds are much more interesting and compelling. It’s easy to get lost in my story worlds, and that’s okay, as long as I can keep that one foot in this world—the one that really matters.

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author
Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly
http://www.kelleyheckart.com
http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/CelticChick
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

Balance is the key to a great story

Balance is the key to life and it is also the key to writing a great story. When I refer to balance in a story, I’m referring to things like varying sentences—long sentences followed by short ones, not starting every sentence with the same words. I’m also referring to not repeating words and phrases, creating descriptions that add to the story without overpowering it and adding body language tags to sections of dialog so you don’t have “talking heads syndrome.”
To help me remember to balance out my stories, I compare writing stories to writing songs. A song has different parts and instruments; all the layers have to be balanced to work. Writing is also like baking. When baking something, you have to have all the right balance of ingredients—too much of an ingredient or not enough ingredients will have an effect on whatever you are baking. Some writers also compare writing to weaving.
The easy way to remember to balance out your story is to remind yourself that too much of anything in a story will throw the story out of balance.

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author
Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly
http://www.kelleyheckart.com
http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/CelticChick
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

A new year, a new outlook

Yeah, a new year! I want to be hopeful that 2014 will be a better year than the previous five years, but my pessimistic self won’t allow me to get too excited. I suppose this new year can’t be worse than what we went through after 2008. And things seem to be improving for me (and my husband) but we aren’t out of the black hole yet.

It seems life cannot be planned. Everything that has happened to me in the last thirteen years has been an unpleasant surprise. My life did not turn out the way I had wanted it to be. Some good has come out of these changes, but also some very bad things as well.

Writing saved me from myself, kept me from losing my sanity. Finding an outlet for my frustration, pain and anger was the good that came of my life changes.

The bad, well the bad is something I try to forget. I guess things end up working out somehow, though I’m still struggling a lot with accepting my fate. It’s terrifying not being able to do the things I used to do, to be a different person. But I am lucky to have a husband and a family that understands and sticks by me.

I just hope 2014 is the year that I can finally stop worrying, but then do we ever stop worrying about the future? For what lies in the future, but the unknowable and the inevitable fate of all mortals?

Perhaps the best way to deal with life changes is to think of life as one long, unpredictable adventure and live in the moment. That seems to be the way to live life. Maybe if I had done that all along, I wouldn’t be so bothered by the unexpected.

I didn’t want to make any New Year’s resolutions because I never keep them, but I decided to make a resolution for 2014—to live in the moment.

Happy New Year!

My dogs—living in the moment

 

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

Solitude

This word sounds so peaceful to me and makes me feel relaxed. I picture an empty meadow with bright flowers and sunlight. I’m one of those people that enjoy being by myself. The word solitude makes me think of that excitement when I’m by myself working on a story. Without solitude I wouldn’t have what I need to write or to think up my characters and stories.

As a teenager, I looked forward to those times when I could be alone with a book. The characters and settings in the stories kept me company and entertained me. I still look forward to being alone with my thoughts.

Sometimes I like some music with my solitude and sometimes I enjoy the quiet. If I’m not writing, I have a book in my hand or I’m working on crafts. Even when I worked outside the home, I liked a job that required as little human contact as possible. The main reason I was drawn to writing was because I liked the idea of working alone. Being alone is essential for me as a writer.

For me, solitude is a word that conjures up pleasant feelings.

 

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

New Release!

Two mortals are caught up in the battle between the Titans and Olympian gods.

Buy links for Daughter of Night on author website: http://kelleyheckart.com/daughter_of_night.html

Memories of Xena

We lost our female dog on 5/5/12 to Lymphoma. After her diagnosis, Xena went downhill very fast, but like her namesake, Xena: Warrior Princess, she was a fighter to the end.
I usually don’t post about anything other than writing related stuff and my collection of hunky longhaired men, but this seemed appropriate since she was an inspiration to me in many ways. We shared the same medical condition, colitis, but while I complained and felt sorry for myself, she never showed any signs of illness, always happy, enjoying the sun on her face and eager for belly rubs. She also inspired my writing. A white wolf in one of my books is based on her.

Xena had a special bond with my husband. She shared my husband’s love of peanut butter and music. She was an accomplished singer. When Mike would strum his guitar, she would sit in front of him and sing along to the melody. She also had an awesome wolf howl.

She loved her stuffed animals and would gather them around her.
At Christmas, she would proudly show off her latest stuffed animal.

At an outside New Year’s Eve party at my parents’ house, she sampled any plates or drinks that the guests unknowingly placed on the ground by their chairs. She was so stealthy, no one noticed her but me.

When she played with her brother, she would make him do all the work. While he ran around and got tired, she would remain in one spot and lunge at him as he ran by.

I will always remember her playing with White Boy the Chihuahua, chasing him around the coffee table at a high speed at my parents’ house.

She loved belly rubs the most, well maybe after peanut butter.

When she hurt her leg and was walking on three legs for a while, she chased a rabbit on only three legs. Her nickname until her leg healed was Hippity Hop.

Sock wars. Xena and her brother would play in Mike’s pile of freshly washed white socks on the bed.

My husband would leave the bathroom door cracked open a little in the morning and she would burst in on him, eager for the treats he would give her later.

While sitting in his recliner eating something with peanut butter, Mike would see an eye staring at him from the corner of the footrest. It was Xena, hoping for a lick of peanut butter.

Xena was strong to the very end and we will never forget her. RIP, beautiful girl.

1998-2012

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author
Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly
http://www.kelleyheckart.com
http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/ Check out my long hair hotties!
http://twitter.com/CelticChick
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

The Writer’s Curse

This is something that continues to confound me and I know I’m not the only one. What I’m talking about is not being able to ‘see’ my own mistakes in my writing. Even after rounds of self-editing, I still miss some things like dangling modifiers or those pesky body parts that insist on taking action. Or the ‘ing’ words that keep popping up despite my best efforts to tame them. This became more apparent to me while working on edits for a manuscript that was contracted four years ago and is about to be published. Eek. I’d like to think that my self-editing skills have improved in that time, and they have, but it was a real eye-opener and made me appreciate my editor so much more.

The really weird part for me is that I can easily spot these things and other editing fixes in other writer’s work, but I’m blind to them in my own writing. This is what I call the writer’s curse. It’s possible that over time we writers can train our eyes to better spot errors, but I think that it is always best to have someone else take a look at our writing. This is why it’s important to have a critique partner and if you self-publish, an editor.

One thing is for sure. As long as writers are plagued by this curse—editors will never be without work.

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author
Captivating...Sensual...Otherworldly
http://www.kelleyheckart.com
http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/ Check out my long hair hotties!
http://twitter.com/CelticChick
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

A Greek vampire, Celtic kings, vengeful goddesses, an ancient faery curse…
All three books of my Dark Goddess trilogy are available in Print and Ebook. Set in dark age Scotland, I mixed history with a Samhain/Beltaine myth that revolves around an Irish clan and the goddesses Brigit and Cailleach.
http://kelleyheckart.com/BookShelf.html

Letting go of the past

I admit I like to collects things—knick-knacks and memorabilia from my past. My collecting wasn’t too bad in the beginning, but after 30 plus years of stuff, my house is full. Most of the things I have are worthless to anyone but me. The necklaces and bracelets I’ve kept over the years are pretty or cool, but I don’t wear them anymore. So why do I keep them? I think I hang on to my rocker jewelry because of the memories that are imprinted in the various leather-studded, skull-adorned, snake-shaped jewelry that I used to wear as part of my rock-n-roll persona, a part of my life that no longer exists. A psychiatrist would probably say that I am afraid to let go of that part of my life.

And then there are the numerous crystals and stones that I have collected over the years. Do I need that many rocks? No. I don’t need all the shot glasses and other stuff in my giant curio cabinet either. I remember when I went shopping for this curio cabinet and ended up buying the largest one I could find and easily filled it with stuff. I actually have two curio cabinets—the small one I started out with (and should have stopped with that one) and the gigantic one that the movers could barely get into our house.

No, I am not surrounded by stacks of boxes or left with tiny pathways to move around my house—at least not yet. After reading about a woman in Las Vegas that was believed to be missing and later found dead under piles of her belongings, and after watching a couple of episodes of Hoarders, I have finally started getting rid of some of my things that I don’t use anymore. By purging some of these things from my past, I feel like I can breathe easier and think more clearly. For the first time, I can find a tank top right away and not have to spend fifteen minutes digging through piles of them to find what I am looking for. I kept a couple of pieces of my rocker jewelry, but got rid of the rest. And I am proud to say that I have an empty drawer in my dresser for the first time in years. The empty drawer is screaming for me to fill it up with stuff, but I’m not listening.
By letting go of the past, I feel a freedom I haven’t felt in a long time.

Kelley Heckart

'Timeless tales of romance, conflict & magic'
http://www.kelleyheckart.com
http://twitter.com/CelticChick
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

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