How Do You Make that Backwards Я?

One of the questions I am asked about NEVЯLAND is–How the hell do you make that backwards “R”?

First, it’s not actually an “R”. It’s the Russian letter Я–pronounced YA. It’s also the first person singular pronoun “I” in Russian.

And I make Я with a simple mouse click that switches my English keyboard setting to a Russian keyboard setting on my Mac (PC can do it, too).

Mac has an upper task window, and my window shows an American flag to tell me I’m using the English keyboard setting.

When I want to type Russian letters, I click on the American flag, a drop menu appears with a Russian flag in it. I then click on the Russian flag, and VOILA! My keyboard is transformed into a Russian keyboard.

(Not the actual letters printed on the keys, of course–I have a picture of a Russian keyboard taped to my wall to show me where the Russian letters are located as if I were using a real Russian keyboard.)

Once I type Я, I click on the Russian flag in my Mac’s upper task window, click on the American flag in the drop down menu, and I’m back to using the English keyboard setting.
On the Russian keyboard, the Я letter is where the English letter Z is located.

As I typed the outline for the first book, I had to come up with a NAME for the book and the series.

I must have a NAME when I write a book as the NAME suggests a theme for me and helps keep me focus.

The title NEVERLAND came quite easily, but I didn’t like the way it looked.

I played around the the spelling:

NEVRLAND

NEVRLAN

NVRLND

And none of them felt right. I continued outlining.

So, I’m plotting Chapter Three: Laynie, who has witnessed the hysterical chaos that has taken over Junebug and is horrified by the death of a couple of children, is determined to ride her bike out of Junebug to her grandmother’s farm about three miles outside of town.

However, in her panic, she forgets about the invisible wall surrounding the city and imprisoning the children.

She peddles up to the city limits at full speed and crashes into the invisible barrier. She’s thrown forward. Her head slams into the invisible wall, and she’s knocked out.

As she regains consciousness, she hears a hissing sound and a terrible metallic sharp odor assails her nostrils.

When she’s fully awake, she sees Cassie, a classmate from Junebug Junior High spray painting in the air–and the letters are hanging in the air on the invisible wall.

Cassie is a mainstreamed special education student classified as an Idiot-Savant who is a genius at math but has little to no social or verbal skills.

She likes to listen to audio stories, though, and her favorite story is Peter Pan.

She tells Laynie that a Blue Fairy has visited Junebug during the night and has taken all the adults away, including her parents.

Laynie realizes that Cassie is confusing two stories: Peter Pan and Pinocchio.

Pinocchio features the Blue Fairy, a motherly figure who helps Pinocchio become a real boy.

As Laynie walks away from Cassie and her “painting on the air”, Cassie calls out, “Good-bye. Don’t let the Blue Fairy get ‘cha!”

Laynie turns around and sees what Cassie has written “on the air”, which is
NEVЯLAND

And that’s how the title with it’s Я came about.

The title also reveals a major theme about growing up in a world without adult supervision, much as the children in Peter Pan’s NEVERLAND:

• What kind of “world” would several thousand Children build if they were left to fend and defend for themselves?

Do you have a question about NEVЯLAND or writing in general? Send me your question, and I’ll do my best to get back to you ASAP.

Thanks for your support and encouragement. Although writing is a solitary event, putting a novel together is a collaborative effort–and I’m getting all sorts of great advice and encouragement from friends, new and old, as well as fellow writers.

See you on the bookshelves,

Larry Mike Garmon

The Birth of NEVЯLAND

NEVЯLAND was born on 23 April 2010.

I was meditating about a story idea. A story that involved a 12-year-old  protagonist in a post-apocalyptic setting.

I wanted to write a Middle Grade transitional to Young Adult  end-of-the-world thriller that didn't involve genetic mutation and  zombies.

I asked myself two questions:

1. What do teens, especially young teens, want more than anything else?

2. What do teens, especially young teens, fear more than anything else?

The answers to those two questions is exactly the same answer:

The disappearance of Parents and Adults.

I read once that when God wants to punish us, He answers our prayers.

What would the world be like if all the adults disappeared?

Lord of the Flies meets Home Alone jumped to mind as the  comparable story lines, motifs, and themes.

First, I had to decide on the age of those who would disappear.

Of course, legal Adulthood--18-years-old.

That means the world is full of newborns through 17-years-old.

But, wait. The world is too big.

Let's make it one small town.

A small town in Southwest Oklahoma.

Junebug, Oklahoma.

Junebug, Oklahoma is my fictional town for nearly all my stories loosely based  on Altus, Oklahoma.

Like William Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County is based on his  beloved Oxford, Mississippi.

And the kids left in Junebug really are the last people left on of  Earth.

Only those between newborn and 17 living in Junebug have survived what  the kids label the Rapture.


What would happen?

How would the kids react?

How would the various age levels react?

Who would go crazy--insane?

Who would commit suicide?

Who would be in charge, try to take over, try to be a dictator?

Would the racial and ethnic make-up of the remaining kids be a factor?  Of course, they would! People naturally seek safety not only in numbers  but in numbers of their own kind--especially children.

Fear is a great motivator for story.

And what about the newborns? What would happen to them? Who would take  care of them?

This applies to the infants and toddlers as well.

Not only that, the Rapture has not stopped. Any 17-year-old who turns 18  also disappears.

By Sunday, 25 April 2010, I had a 20,000 word single spaced outline of the  first book.

There will be five books.

Because the protagonist is 13-years-old, each book covers a year in her  life from the morning of the Rapture in the First Book to the day before  her own 18th birthday in the Fifth Book--the next day she turns 18 and  disappears.

I don't know why, but from the beginning my protagonist was female. At  first she was 12, and then she aged one year by the time the First Book  outline was complete.

This is how the idea moved from Mediation to What If Question to Outline  to Story and is now proceeding full steam into Novel.

See you on the bookshelves.

Larry Mike Garmon

PS: Make sure to check out the other entries under the NEVЯLAND category for other insights to the development of this novel.

A Rose by Any Other Name Still Gets the Blame for the Thorns

"The Naming of Cats" is an excellent poem by T.S. Eliot. If you haven't read it, you must be culturally depraved indeed.

Names are more important to an author than a parent. I know that sounds odd, but it's true.

As an author, I fret over a name for a character.

My own children's names came quite easily.

As a story begins to tell itself to me, a character often tells me his/her name right away.

Sometimes, though, I've got to use a descriptive name as the fabulists of old did because the character is either too shy to tell me his/her name or is being a bit of a prankster and making me guess his/her name or wait until I'm well into the story to tell me his/her name.

As a teacher, I have nearly 3,000 names of former students from which to choose. Because my YA characters are amalgams of my students, a character name pops to mind as I remember a former student who is much like the character in the story, and so the name sticks.

In NEVЯLAND, the protagonist's name has changed twice.

First, I thought she said her name was Rianne Pfaltzgraft. I had a seventh grade student many, many years ago named Rianne Pfaltzgraft, and I've always wanted to use that name in a tale.

As I began to outline and then write, the girl aged from 12 to 13 and she told me "Rianne Pfalzgraft" wasn't her name at all. She was just using that until I begin to listen.

To tell you the truth, I still wasn't listening well enough, and I didn't catch the second incarnation of the character's name and I don't remember it now.

Finally, she shouted the name out to me: Laynie.

I have a student graduating this year named Laynie, and as the character developed, I realized how much much the protagonist of NEVЯLAND and Laynie were twins--not so much in appearance but in attitude and temperment.

Interesting, Laynie (the character, not the real student) still looks an awful lot like Rianne, which is probably why I was confused as to her name in the beginning.

Once I had Laynie's name, her friends' names came next and came quickly: Lauryn, Ravyn, Cynthea, and Kymber. These are actual names of students I know.

There's a clique nickname in that group of "Y" girls.

Until Lauryn told me her name, I had to call her Snobby in the outline. At 13, she already is a multi-beauty pageant winner and is quite vain and, well, snobby. Her brother is referred to as Snobby's Brother, or SB for short.

The eighth grade boy Laynie is interested in is just called Jock (he plays football and runs track) while the geek who is interested in Laynie is called Nerd Boy because he is, well, a geek and a nerd.

I know both of these boys will eventually reveal to me their names, hopefully by the time I submit the manuscript in August!


For name inspiration, I also like to scan baby name lists on the Internet.

However, the best is the SSN most popular names over the past one hundred years. Here's the LINK.

Character names are important. It's hard to image the protagonist of Catcher in the Rye being named Mike Smith instead of Holden Caufield.

And imagine the lost symbolism in Death of a Salesman if Willie Loman's name was Sam Steward.

See you the bookshelves.

Larry Mike Garmon

Unblurring My Religion

Pablo Picasso said, “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

Right now, I'm in the process of unblurring spots--the jargon is "pre-writing", "outlining", "brainstorming", "fleshing out the story", "freewriting".

I've reached a point in my YA fantasy Barmaglot where the story has taken over the writing, and I'm little more than the fingers ticking the letters on the keyboard. Although I like the story very much and am quite pleased with the story, I'm pretty much done as far as the "writer" aspect is concerned.

This happens to me as I complete a project.

And my mind begins to grasp at the straws of creativity because it's doing little more than perfunctory work at this point.

And any straw will do, really.

I'm never at a loss for ideas. I stub my toe in the dark of morning, and before the pain reaches mid-throb, a whole novel flashes through my head about a guy stubbing his toe in the dark of morning and what kind of day he is about to experience.

But, straws of inspiration do not bricks of Story make. And I know this. Ideas are ideas and not Story.

Sometimes, though, a blade of straw stabs me as if it were thrown by an Oklahoma tornado and impales me with an idea that just won't let go.

That's where I'm at now. As Barmaglot heads to its destined conclusion, I'm impaled by an idea for my next Story.

And I don't call this phase of my writing "pre-writing", "outlining", "brainstorming", "fleshing out the story", "freewriting".

For me, it's unblurring my religion.

It's not a question of talent or determination or desire or even time.

It's a question of faith.

Story first appears to me in blurry visionary form with only crumbs of character here, snippets of scene there, and smidgens of story everywhere all floating around in the amniotic fluid of creativity.

All these little yellow spots dancing and swirling around me. Little yellow spots that require my art and my intelligence to be transformed into Sun, into Story.

One Story focuses itself into crystal clarity and another Story starts to focus itself, to unblur the spot into Sun.

And I'm at my happiest because this is where Story is revealed-- a process of discovery and revelation in the truest senses of those words. I am John of Patmos sitting in my lonely cave with the vision of the divine wrapping itself around me.

The genius of Story is not in how much a writer does, but in how little. The work of a sublimely confident writer is not to include a single word to simply keep the reader's attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and keeps the reader there just long enough for the reader to contemplate it, to inhabit it in the imagination. Story is not concerned with thrilling the reader, but with inspiring the reader with awe and wonder.

To turn the yellow spot into Sun.

See you on the bookshelves.

Larry Mike Garmon