Category Archives: Books I write

Countdown to the first self-published novel: 10

February 24, 2015Books I writevica

I love countdowns to the books by my favourite authors.

And now I am starting my very own countdown!

While starting into space they start with 10, so I will also start with ten. Self-publishing my very first novel is for me not less than starting a space shuttle or a rocket into space. If anything, it feels like much more.

Since this is a weekly post and we start as bespoke with 10, my first novel “The Truth about Family” will be available for purchase as an e-book and in print in ten weeks or less. My goal is to publish it this spring and I give myself ten weeks to do so.

Please excuse me if I forget and sneak a blog post outside of the countdown series. I am sure you will enjoy those too. Apart from that there will be some shortcuts in the countdown as well, like one post for 6 and 5 for example. Or maybe it will be 3 and 2? I have no idea when this will be. We will discover this together.

The countdown will be about the process of self-publishing. I find it so exciting, that I simply have to share it. And I will share some quotes from the book, with each of these posts. Further I will share photographs of my father, which are mentioned in the book, and/or which inspired various scenes in the book.

So, here it goes…

The process:

I am working with a wonderful editor on my book and enjoy seeing the transformation of the text in the book. It is the same text, the same story, but better. Difficult to describe. Yes, as many writers I was scared to open the edited files, but when I started going through them change by change, I started to enjoy what I saw. Very inspiring experience.

The cover is also almost ready. My family were the main advisers in brainstorming the cover. My editor, who is also the cover designer, has brought the whole cover to a very rounded concept.

More details on the whole team of helpers and supporters of the book will be of course in the acknowledgments section.

I will learn formatting the inside of the book soon. The text-books and resources found are in place. I am quite excited to see how the book’s text will take shapes of an e-book and a book for print. It is scary, but very exciting. If you are interested what I will use for it, here is the information. I will use the widely used writer’s software Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/). I must admit I became its addict. It is fun to use and write in it. This blog post is also written using Scrivener.

Quote:

Today I will share not a quote directly, but the back cover blurb of the book. I think it worth sharing in order to introduce the book to the new readers and remind the supporters of this page what it is about. At some point this description will replace the one on the homepage. But right now, you are the first to read the almost ready draft.

Misha lost his family.
He can’t rest until he has found them,
if only to find himself.

Inspired by true events in the life of the author’s father, Mihail Ikizli, this remarkable novel tells the story of an orphanage graduate, who set out from a village in Soviet Moldova, to the University of Odessa, Ukraine, in the hopes of finding the family he had lost as a toddler during World War II.

His quest will not be in vain. But will what he discovers bring him a much longed-for peace, or will it only bring him misery? Little does Misha know what he will find out – not only of his own past, but also about the orphanage; a place he believed he had left behind for ever.

Picture:

Working at the orphanage’s workshop. My father is the first from the right.

To iron or not to iron

January 20, 2015Books I writevica

My all time favourite in any novel or a short story are dialogues. I must admit I find it challenging to write a good dialogue without all the characters sounding like I do. But I am up for a challenge, and most probably because it is a challenge I simply love exercising writing dialogues. This might be one of the reasons why the descriptions in my books are very brief and most of the stories in them are revealed through dialogues.

The question then was how to find an individual voice for each character. I was excited when I found the following idea in the book “How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The fastest Was to Improve Any Manuscript” by James Scott Bell on pages 40-41:

“One of my favorite exercises when planning a novel is the Voice Journal. This is a free-form document, stream of consciousness, in the character’s own voice.

How do I know what the character’s voice sounds like? I prompt them with questions and then let them talk. I do this fast, without thinking about it much. What I’m waiting for is the moment when the character starts talking to me in a voice I did not plan.

And it always happens. That’s the fun part, when the character starts to take on life for me.”

As I was contemplating about this idea and thinking what I could ask my characters about, the protagonist of my second book, which I am currently writing, started talking to me in my mind. The ideas just started pouring out.

But before sharing with you what we talked about let me introduce this character shortly to you. Hannah (by the way she thinks her name is Victoria) grew up in Moldova and like me she studied physics of semiconductors. She is about to travel to Germany connected to her work. The day before her appointment at German Embassy for getting a visa for her travel, she finds out from her father that she doesn’t need a visa, because besides being a Moldovan citizen, she is also a citizen of the United States. Because she was born there. And because her late mother was American. As you can imagine, from that moment, her life is literally upside down. This is the tentative title of the sequel I am starting with her. “A Life Upside Down”. And the sub-title of the first book is “A Spy’s Daughter”.

So, here is our dialogue as I recorded it after it materialized in my head. My thoughts and comments are in brackets.

Hannah = H: “She likes ironing. You must be kidding me!”

Vica (me) = V: “Pardon?”

H: “I read you blog post about ironing.” (/various-kinds-of-greed/)

V: “You did?”

H: “Well, through your head obviously.” (rolling imagined eyes)

V: “Ah, yes, sure.” (nod and shrug)

H (ignoring the irony in my voice): “So, explain it to me, how can you like ironing?”

V: “Well, it’s soothing; you can see how something crinkly becomes smooth and even; you see the result immediately. And …”

H (waving impatiently): “I know the physics of it. But how can it be soothing?”

V: “It can calm the wild thoughts, slow them down and bring you to the current moment of …”

H: “Oh no, not this awareness thing again!”

V: “Why not?”

H: “The only thing I am aware of, right now, is that my life is a mess. An extreme mess!” A pause. “As. You. Know.” (Accusing look shot in my direction)

V (not going to give up the cheerful state): “But it’s exciting isn’t it?”

H: “What?”

V: “Your life!” (proud of the idea and sure of a praise coming)

H: “It is” (there, my praise, I smile.) “Not in the way I would have wished, but it is, exciting.” (well maybe not a praise I expected, but it’s still good, right?) “Much too exciting for my taste!” (maybe not a compliment at all. But whatever. I like it. Trying to focus back to what she is saying and she is talking a lot. Am I like that?) “So, what I don’t understand is how those mundane things can help in crisis.”

V: “There might be no cri…”

H: “Now, Cora, the character from your writer friend’s, Menna, latest book. What was the name of it? “The Dress Shop of Dreams?” (I nod) “So, she, that is Cora, I am not sure about Menna, knows how I feel. Cora hated shower and all the other things of daily routine. As she rightly said, I’ll interpret, of course, these mundane things come in the way of those that really matter.”

V (infected by her impatience): “But all that matters is in front of you! Right here, right now!”

H: “Really? Well, maybe, for you humans, but for us fictionals, the story must go on! No reader would read a book if there would be only surroundings and no action.”

V: “Um, you might be right there.”

H: “Of course, I’m right! I am always right! The problem is that I still kind of depend on you, or at least on you putting the words on paper and keyboard as they should be.”

V: “And how should that be?”

H: “Fabulous. There must be a fabulous, the perfect, and mind you, a happy, a very happy ending! Promise.” (I hesitate) “Do. You. Promise?”

V: “Well …”

H: “What?”

V: “Um, this is going to be a sequel… and there will always be twists and most probably also at the end of each book.”

H: “And what would that be?”

V (after a pause of being lost shortly, found the wit back again): “I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

H: “Ha-ha. Very funny.” (Measured me and waited for me to say something. But I am not going to. This is definitely a trap.) “Well, then, just simply do your best. OK?”

V (with a wide grin): “Promise.”

Picture: Me, on a dune in Sahara. In the beginning of 1980s. I am not sure whether I will send Hannah to Sahara or not. She is going to Germany. This is as far as I can see for her right now. But at least some of the vividness from those times will definitely go into Hannah’s childhood memories about the places she’s been to. And I will definitely use the over-dimensional sunglasses somewhere.

Just a boy

January 7, 2015Books I read, Books I write, Discoveriesvica

As the work on my first novel progresses (I will work with a professional editor on it in February) I feel closer to my father, than I ever did since he died. But maybe also since I have ever consciously known him. I was only ten when he died, so I never got to know him in my adolescent or adult years.

I am very grateful to having been inspired to write this book. At the beginning I thought that it was too sad or too heavy of a topic. And then somewhere (I don’t remember exactly where, maybe in “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott) I read the following advice (reproduced with my own words): “If there is something you fear most or are most uncomfortable with, write about it”.

So this is what I did and as already said, I am very thankful and glad about it. During this process, I discovered many beautiful and joyful pieces in my father’s story.

Although many gaps between true events are filled in with my imagination, or maybe because of it, I felt often as though my father was present, when I wrote this book.

I always idolized my father. I guess this feeling grew stronger after he passed away. Most people start appreciating something or someone when they are not there anymore. And this appreciation is sometimes distorted by imagining them being ideal or even close to divine. This ideal picture of those who passed make them even farther away than they already are.

We all thrive for divinity but we feel the closest to all human.

And this what happened when I researched about my father and wrote the book. I started to see him more and more human with his possible flaws and fears. And with this, his picture, memories of him became vivid and alive.

One of the sweet discoveries about my father was that he was just a boy when he was young. You might smile about this discovery and ask “Who else could he be?” So let me explain.

Having grown up in an orphanage, my father didn’t know his exact date and place of birth. So he chose both deliberately. For his birth date he chose January 10^th, the birthday of Alexei Tolstoy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Nikolayevich_Tolstoy). As many of those who grew up in Soviet Union, I knew of Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy mostly because of Buratino, his version of Pinocchio. But the bulk of his work was science fiction and fantasy. As soon as I read about this, I knew that my father must have enjoyed science fiction as many children and teenagers, especially boys, do. This discovery made me smile and think: “He was just a boy”.

Fueled by the discovery of my father’s favorite author, I am now reading the English translation of “Count Cagliostro” and I simply love it. The subtle humor, the seeming simplicity but at the same time beauty of descriptions (“The wet grass in the garden looked silver in those places where the light from the windows fell upon it. The air smelled of dampness and flowers.”), as well as briefness and precise strokes on dialogues are very capturing and intriguing.

See for example the following definition of magic uttered by the Count Phoenix, also known as Count Cagliostro: “There are no miracles. There is merely the knowledge of nature’s elemental powers, namely fire, water, earth and air; the states of the substances, namely solid, liquid, soft and gaseous; the forces of nature – attraction, repulsion, motion and rest; the elements of which there are thirty-six and finally of nature’s energies: electric, magnetic, light and sensual. All this is subject to three fundamentals: knowledge, logic and will …”

But isn’t the ability to write something like this with such simple words and with subtle reflection of the world as a wonder, a miracle in itself?

Picture: my father in his young years.

The beauty of fragments

November 11, 2014Books I write, Contemplationsvica

I used to moan about availability only of separate fragments in our memories, with many and sometimes large gaps in-between. We have a number of stories saved inside our heads, which we tell again and again. Time to time, some lost stories come to surface, but there is no continuous recording up there in our brains.

As a writer, I recently realized the blessing of such fragmentary memory. If we would have a capability for continuous memory, two things would happen. First, our brains would be too full at some point and nothing else would fit in there. And the second, what would be fatal for me as a reader, the books would appear quite unbelievable, because without gaps it would never be possible to fit a whole story into a book.

I realized this just before finishing my very first novel last week. It was very gratifying to realize this. Also because my book is based on a true story and I had only fragments of it available to base my novel upon. With this insight, writing of the end went faster and smoother.

And now I am enjoying editing my first book and working on my next. I will inform you on the progress as soon as any of these go into the next stage.

The plans are the following: my second child will come into this world this year, and next year my very first novel-child will see the world.

Picture: What a blessing to have pictures to fill in the memory gaps. Together with notes in diaries they can bring some wonderful discoveries about our pasts. I completely forgot about this zoo visit in May. It was a wonderful day!

On a constant hunt

September 24, 2014Books I write, Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

Have you ever experienced a situation, which didn’t let you go for some time after it happened?

About a month ago I was walking down a pedestrian street in Aalborg with my husband and somebody caught my attention. A handsome blond man with big blue eyes was walking along many other people in the opposite direction to us and was staring at me. He was probably one of those young students who have an extra job to earn some additional money with distributing various prospects on various products to the passers-by. He had a number of such leaflets in his hands but he forgot to distribute them. He was just staring at me.

I was confused and looked at my husband who didn’t notice the man. Michael smiled at me. “So, nothing wrong with my face or appearance, if Michael smiles,” I concluded.

I sought in my memory if I knew the man. I couldn’t find any hint or any face that would remind me of him.

He long passed by while I was still searching in my head. He also didn’t try to talk to me. So, who knows why he stared at me for that short time. Maybe I reminded him of someone. I will never know.

But my thoughts were coming back again and again to this man and his look at me. This started worrying me. Why was I thinking of this man? My relationship to my husband is as harmonic as one could wish for. We have our ups and downs, but we take care of each other and are honest with each other. Being best friends and lovers at the same time helps a lot.

But, this man. Why was I thinking of him again and again? And then it hit me: “He is one of the main characters for one of my future novels!” It will be actually a sequel and I have a rough story for each of the books as well as the protagonist, a young woman in her twenties-thirties. But the love of her life was a bit diffuse. Until that moment. I always thought that he would be dark eyed and dark haired like my husband and also my childhood ideas for the most handsome man (although I did fall in love with or had a crush on men of very varying appearances in between: blond, bald, blond and bald, bald and dark, dark and not bald, grey and red haired, etc.). But I was wrong, her love is blond and has big blue eyes. And she will meet him when he will be handing out leaflets on the street and forget to hand them out because he would be simply swept by her sight.

As soon as I had this idea, the man stopped “hunting” me in my thoughts. And at this moment I realized something. Many people do stare at me and others time to time. But we don’t notice everyone staring at us. Not every awkward or funny situation catches our attention. For a writer, the situations or people catching our attention and not leaving are most probably the “writing material” and already inhabit our writing world, even if we don’t realize it at first.

Conclusion: I am a writer, so my mind is on a permanent hunt for characters, settings and scenes.

And this was true before I became aware of this and even before I started writing regularly a year and a half ago.

As soon as I realized this I relaxed a lot and enjoyed my attention being caught by various people and situations. I have walked by another young and handsome man in a Santa Claus costume, in the middle of August. I couldn’t stop smiling at the whole situation, seeing him walking down the street alone in his red hat and jacket, without a beard. He grinned back and said hello. I answered.

This was after my discovery of the permanent hunt, so I immediately started considering if his appearance would be closer to the love of my protagonist. The Santa Claus was also blond and blue-eyed, but he was much taller and his eyes were not as big as of the “leaflet” man. And the answer came: “No, the Santa Claus will be a minor character, but he will influence the way my protagonist and her love interact with each other and finally come together.” The scenes started to evolve. I hurried with a happy pace home and wrote down these ideas.

I guess, this is how it has always been. Stories and situations hunt us and catch our attention and then we are eager to tell them. Centuries ago story-tellers set on stones and benches and told the stories to anyone who would listen. Today, in the hurried world, these stories are rather recorded than told. But the process is still the same. It is just that sometimes we take these situations too personally and think that we did something wrong. But all it is about, is that there is a constant hunt: we hunt the stories that bring our creativity and us further and stories hunt us to be brought to life.

Enjoy the hunt, everyone! You might be living an exciting story right now! Actually, I am sure you are. Just look around.

Pictures: Five brilliant settings, all at the same place: Tivoli in Copenhagen. So many ideas are whirling in my head. 🙂