The Birth of a Novel

 Writing a novel is hard. We all know that, or at least, suspect it to be true. Here's what no one knows until you do it. Pull up a chair and sit a spell, I'll tell you all about it.

So you wrote a novel, did you? Good job, now it's time to go to work. I am very fortunate to have an awesome support group. It is vast and varied. And sometimes all the advice points in the same direction sometimes different. But the very first advice I got regarding my completed first novel that was unequivocally confirmed from every direction was...don't publish that book yet.  You need at least two books before you publish, really three is better.

What? I wrote an 80,000-word novel and it's not enough? Okay, all these people can't be wrong, let's write another book. And we did.

Then it's time to publish. There is the editing, the formatting, an ebook, a print book, and a cover. Don't forget the cover.

The title of my first book is Harvesting the Hummingbird. Literally two days after I decided on the title of my book, which begins in the U.S. and ends in my city of Cuenca, Ecuador, my dear friend Stu McNicol posted a picture on Facebook he took looking out his window over the city of Cuenca. He was trying to capture a double rainbow over the mountain top in the distance, with the city below, and a hummingbird literally photo bombed the picture.  Oh that must be a sign, right?

After a little eyelash batting and a pretty please, Stu said, of course, I could use his photo for my book.  Hmm, now how to make a book cover? Enlist daughter -in-law who has photo editing software, give her a few pointers from the Createspace website and turn my attention to other matters. Well, long story short, Sarah did a wonderful job creating my cover, but the picture wasn't really big enough, and the font's for both books should be the same. The second cover was done by good friend Susan Herron because Sarah is really too busy to be making book covers. She's a brain scientist after all.

I get some editing done. I learn about formatting, and uploading, and distribution channels, and marketing plans. And I begin writing the third book for the series. Along the way, I make more friends through friends of friends in the indie publishing and writing business and I have a support network worthy of this tightrope walk of self-publishing. And I share photos of some possibilities for the third book cover. And then...there is that one new acquaintance.  You know. the one you just met, who is wildly successful and doesn't know you at all, who says, really? I'm sorry, your covers are crap. No, he didn't really say it exactly like that, but you get the idea. And then the gates were open and other comments follow. The nice thing about the criticism is it was accompanied with solutions to make the covers better. Like, your cover doesn't have to be a scene from within the text, it should indicate what genre, etc. So we started over, and the ever patient Susan began again, and we tweeked and tested, til we thought we had it and we asked again and a few more tweeks and NOW we have covers.

 



The title of this post is the birth of a novel, well because, a novel's not just words and ideas, and plots and characters. It's like giving birth from conception, and now I know why authors feel the way about their books that they do their children. It's a process!

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by.

~*~
Scarlett in Cuenca Living the good life!

Christmas in Cuenca

I know it's been forever since I did a blog post and there is so much to catch up, but I need to address some questions that have arisen in the last month or so from friends and family back home.

Do they celebrate Christmas in Ecuador? What are you doing for the holidays? I bet there isn't much to do there this time of year.

Au-contraire, my peeps. I've tried to address these questions as they come up, but seeing is believing, right? First, of course they celebrate Christmas! Ecuador like most Latin American countries is predominantly Catholic.

The Alter at Carmen de la Ascuncion

The Christmas season begins here on November 1st. Christmas trees (artificial pine trees or decorated palms, bamboo,etc) are erected and lights go up on the houses. Neighborhood or barrio parades begin happening and you will usually run into at least one a week. The stores are filled with holiday cheer, and on occasion you will find employees of the bigger box stores like Coral decked in elf costumes. On any day you will see multitudes of angels, shepherds and wisemen.

from a parade passing our home.

Schools have an entire day like a field day of Christmas music, dance, and skits.

By the first of December, the city is ablaze in Christmas lights and decorations. Then the real fun begins. There are parties, some hosted at local restaurants or hotels, but many house parties as well.

Parque Calderon in the Center of El Centro

The river is decorated for the event. Yes, there are lit decorations lining the banks, but in the central part of town there are also waves created across the river with blue led lights from one bridge to the next. The parks are decorated, vendors on the streets string Christmas lights from one side to the other.

At Plaza Otorongo, there is a 4 story tall Nativity.  Here are photos from day time and night time. The building behind is four stories tall.

In the Daytime- many Gringos call it the spaceship nativity.

At night, Santa is here to see the children, food carts and vendors line the sidewalk and families come to spend the evening.

There is the Festival of Lights, where literally hundreds of luminaries cover a plaza with music and a church service. This festival began many, many years ago (about 200 if I'm not mistaken) when a visiting priest began the festival to combine church traditions with local traditions. Until a couple of years ago there were thousands of luminaires, but a fire destroyed them and they are being replaced slowly, because each one is hand made. No Oriental Trading company stuff here.

The Festival of Lights takes place at Santa Domingo.

Cuenca hosts a Santa run, a 5k run where the participants and their furry companions run in Santa costumes.

Photo courtesy of El Tiempo

On Christmas Eve, beginning at 10:00 a.m., the Paso Del Niño begins. It's a parade that lasts all day, sometimes exceeding eight hours. The newspaper here reported, this year there were 20,000 participants and close to 200,000 observers. A special drink called Chincha is served free. Chincha is a fermented fruit beer and has been provided by the same family in Cuenca for 150 years. I admit to being skeptical especially since I'm not a beer drinker, but wish I had found the booth earlier. It's good stuff...but also has a really high alcohol content. I noticed, even the participants in the parade were drinking their Chincha from the provided cups and a few even had water bottles full. The costumes, dancing and music in the parade are fabulous. But the spirit isn't lost. Despite incorporations from the West such as Minions, Winnie-the-Pooh, Santas and elves, there is a very reverent feel to the parade. The parade celebrates the baby Jesus. Children are the main focus with babies in strollers decorated for the occasion, and many participants carrying tiny to life size replicas of the Baby Jesus, swaddled in blankets and many times held close to their hearts as they march the parade route.

Parade photos at the end of the blog. There were over 300 to choose from, my two favorites are first for those of you who don't want to view them all.

The entirety of the El Centro district is filled with food vendors, and vendors selling their crafts. It was a most festive time.

The difference in the mood here is that it is not commercially driven, gifts are given, Santa visits, but it's much more laid back than in the U.S. It's not frantic. People are friendly, happy, relaxed. It's okay to tell everyone Feliz Navidad and share a hug. Jesus is the Reason for the season.

These last two Christmas' have been hard. They are the only ones I was not with my son and family. There was no frantic rush to shop for gifts, no major cleaning of the house, no planning days worth of meals to fit all the different diets, no houseful of company, including sometimes more dogs than humans, no ironing of tablecloths, polishing of silver. No fierce Uno games, no watching of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. No heirloom ornaments on the tree. But it WAS a joyful time, a true celebration, a reboot for the soul, spent with many new friends making new traditions.

I love and miss you all and thank you for time out of your holidays for the many phone and video calls.

Hugs (Abrazos)!

The baby alpaca decked out for the event walked the parade, as long as abuela with the bottle was in front of her.

This couple was so mesmerizing to watch dance, I totally forgot to take a photo. This photo is graciously shared with permission from my friend Joss Burnel, who captured them beautifully!

Yep, that's a German Shepherd reindeer pulling a sled and drinking water from a water bottle.

 Happy 2016, I pray your new year is full of  hope, fun, adventure, love, health and peace.
~*~
Scarlett in Cuenca, Living the good life!

Corpus Christi Celebration

Corpus Christi (Latin for Body of Christ) is a seven day celebration beginning on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.  It is a feast celebration and in Cuenca it is celebrated with sweets, glorious sweets in gluttonous proportions, fireworks and parades.

This is one of the celebrations I have looked the most forward to experiencing since before I arrived in Ecuador. It did not disappoint.  I have lots of photos to share with you, although I didn't get parade or fireworks photos, so there will be something for you to look forward to next year.

The festival mostly takes place in El Centro, (the center) on the blocks surrounding Parque Calderon, and while it is going on all day, I find the night time celebration is fabulous with all the colored lights, the cooler temperatures and families walking the streets together. Literally blocks and blocks of booths side by side and on the wider streets two rows of them featuring the delectable treasures of the celebration.

The cornerstone of the celebration is sweets.  While you can find common sweets in the booths, there are a lot of sweets that are only made during the celebration. We tried a whole host of them as you will see below and they were each good.  A little chocolate, lots of fruits, and enough sugar to draw every bee in town to El Centro and a diabetic's nightmare. But you only live once, right?

Besides the sweets, fireworks, and parades, you will also find real food, colored spot lights, carnival games and maybe even a protest. Without further ado, I present our experience of Corpus Christi with the note that we can't wait until next year!

Our approach into El Centro

Oh My! TOO much to choose from!

Miles of sugary goodness

The treats we ended up bringing home.  See the egg? These eggs were everywhere and we knew they were confections, but when I asked a vendor "What is this" she responded "an Egg" hahaha then she told me it was chocolate, I trusted her and brought it home with me. We tried cutting the outer sugar layer, no success, we tried cracking it like an egg, no success except I think maybe I broke a chunk out of the counter top, we didn't have a hammer or a saw, so Mom ran it under hot water to melt the sugar.  Success! Fabulous chocolate inside, I think this particular treat is a joke on the Gringos, hehehe.

Carnival game reminiscent of roulette.

Another carnival game.

Fishing with beer bottles, Hey I think I saw this in Mississippi!

Outdoor cooking smelled SOO good, unfortunately we had already had dinner.

Chicken, sausage, corn and potatoes.

The following few pictures are the new Cathedral doors, usually gold, with the different cycling colored spot lights. I know, but we were transfixed and mesmerized.

Dancers in the Gazebo at Parque Calderon

Lots of colors in the Parque. They were beginning to set up the frameworks for the fireworks.

We ran up on a protest. It was really quite cool, not frightening at all, just very loud. Our US State Department warning about this protest didn't come out until the next day, Oh Well, we survived and got some great photos.

We trust our fine Policia!

~*~
Dale in Cuenca Living the good life!