Conversations with Characters part 2 and days 11-20

*ahem*

Rafe: You know you want me
Me: ........
Rafe: Come on, admit it.
Me: Well......
Jasper: What's going on in here?
Me: Nothing! Nothing at all!
Jasper: Who's that guy? Didn't he get his chance last year?
Rafe: *snort* At least she wants to publish my story
Katze: Excuse me? It's MY story thank you very much.
Me: *whimper*
Sadie: What's going on in here?
Katze: Am I hearing an echo? what's with these two?
Me: Oh nothing, we're just discussing who wants to be written more
Rafe/Jasper: ME! *glare at each other*
Jasper: You don't even have any special powers! All you do is wave around that sword thing.
Rafe: *eyebrow raise* I'm also very sexy
Sadie: *looks at Rafe* He is.
Katze: yeah...but if you keep staring at him like that I'll slit your throat.
Sadie: eep!
Me: Can't you guys just get along and wait your turn?
Jasper: *whines* but this IS my turn!
Rafe: true, but you can't stop thinking about me can you?
Ginger: She likes the secondary characters better in our story than in yours you know.
Mouse: *frowns at Ginger*
Katze: Who cares? You're secondary! Which means you're expendable!
Rafe: *nods in agreement*
Me: None of you are expendable...I mean some of you do die but you're still important! I swear!
Rafe/Katze: We don't trust you
Jasper/Sadie: We do!
Me: I could always mix you up you know, I am all powerful so you guys better behave!
Katze: Fine, but you better come back to BoR soon. Do you have any idea how boring it is laying in a room with sword wounds for months on end? Seriously. Plus, Rafe and I still want to make out.
Rafe: It's true.
Gabriel: Hey! No making out with my sister!
Katze: *eye roll*
Jasper: Great, we'll see you later tonight when I come down to the kitchen to comfort Sadie since that evil shadow demon attacked.
Sadie: Yeah, until you say something stupid again and I slap you.
Jasper: *grins*
Me: Are we good? Good. Now go away and leave my brain alone so I can get some work done!


So, I've decided it's hard to have two half-finished stories floating around in your head. When that happens fights ensue between my characters. So the past 10 days have been tough. I'm way behind (although not as behind as my word count suggests, but I haven't updated it in awhile) and I'm not sure if I will actually make it or not. Pretty much I'm going to have to write like 5k days for the next week to make up the time. I suppose it's doable, i've gotten over the hump I was in. The exposition in this story is so freaking boring but then it gets fun and exciting. It's starting to turn more the way I wanted it to be. I really wanted it to feel dark and creepy but it's hard to do dark and creepy when all your characters do is introduce themselves to the others.

This is probably the first story I've done where the majority of my characters don't know each other. Really only Jasper and Sadie know each other, everyone else they met at the start of the story. It's much easier for your characters to already know each other, or at least to meet in interesting ways. I wrote a scene that reminded me strongly of the opening dinner scene in the movie Clue. Anyway, i'm into the action now so that' s much more fun.

Lets see if I make it.

Days 6-10

These days writing has been much slower than it should have been.

I'm currently about 3000 words behind where I should be to keep on pace. That doesn't of course mean I won't make it or anything. I wrote over 3000 words in my first day this month so I'm not worried. There is still plenty of time left in the month.

I feel like I've gotten over my exposition stump that had me too bored to write. I don't have a super huge cast of characters this year, but this book demanded more of a traditional introduction to the characters I do have. I haven't been able to just ease them into the story the way I did with BoR because almost none of my characters had ever met before. So I had to introduce them to each other.

But now I'm pretty much past that and I'm onto the rising action. At least the first rising action. I'm looking forward to some of the scenes ahead, although I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to write a few of them.

I'm also enjoying the style of this book, I'm writing in what we dubbed in the last writing group meeting as "3rd person unlimited". Meaning I'm switching perspectives when I feel like it and sticking to the strict rules when they're needed. I'm unlimited in my choices :) Plus I'm writing really short chapters compared to BoR which is also fun.

It's late so I'm going to bed. I wrote about 2100 today which is a good amount. I'm still behind but I'll catch up soon I have no doubt. I have a feeling this week will be a better writing week than last.

Day 4 and 5

Well, sadly day 4 didn't see anything done, at least nothing writing-wise done.

Yesterday I worked, sprained my ankle, drove to the voting place (with a sprained ankle it sucked), voted and worked from home the rest of the night while watching election coverage (hooray for an Obama win!)

I made up for it tonight sort of. I wrote a fair bit and I'm not really behind but I still feel like I'm behind the pack. I'll hopefully write another 2k words tomorrow and then I'll be slightly ahead instead of slightly behind. My initial burst of speed writing this weekend has sadly diminished.

It isn't a big deal, it is nano after all and the book I'm writing is completely unpublishable (no genre to speak of srsly) but still it's fun and I'm enjoying it so far.

Oddly, even though I haven't spent too much time writing BoR lately I'm starting to miss it greatly. It feels weird to be writing something that isn't revolving around Katze and her craziness or Gabriel and his haunted yet powerful dreams.

No matter what, Nano is doing great things for my creative mind.

Day 3

Day 3 has been a long day and I haven't felt much like writing.

Work sucked beyond sucked today and it felt incredibly draining. There are big problems with my studies and it's creating some havoc. I'm really hoping that it won't be like this for the rest of the week (or God forbid, the rest of the month) but I have a bad feeling that it will be.

Sucks for me.

Also, I made 'shortcut' lasagna tonight that didn't actually feel like a shortcut. It was good though.

Pixie got sick again tonight, but unlike last time we didn't take her to the Emergency Vet. We've pretty much deduced that she is trying to hack up a hairball. Which while very gross is better than the alternative of an illness.

As far as my writing goes, I wrote about 1650 words tonight. I didn't quite meet the quota but that's okay. I'm still a little ahead of the game. I liked this one scene that I wrote today, I think it's the romantic in me that liked it. Hopefully I'll continue to like more and more things about my novel.

Now, if only the stupid nano site would work for me!

Day 2

Day two is over for me thankfully. I wrote almost 1700 words today, just barely making the official "daily quota" set forth by Nanowrimo. Of course I did write twice that yesterday, so I'm in good shape.

It's been a hard day for me, not really sure why but I just have struggled a bit with writing today. I think I was just a little tired and wanted to do other things (like nap) today instead.

I did; however, come up with what I think is a fairly decent working title. What do you think of Worthy for the title? Course I'm sure it'll change, but it works for now. Better than calling it Untitled Nano2008 don't you think?

Tomorrow is the first day of the work week which sucks. It doubly sucks because it cuts down my writing time. That being said, I do have somewhat a clear cut idea of what I'm going to write tomorrow so it shouldn't be bad once I get going.

I'm still pretty dubious about this project, but it is only day 2. We'll see how I feel by the end of the week.

It Starts...

So far so good(ish)

I have 3000 words written today, although to be fair I've used strike through on about 500 of them. But there is no delete button in nano so it'll have to stay at least for now. :)

I don't have much to say because i'm busy writing. I think it's good that we started on the weekend because I'm getting a good head start on the month and my goal.

I still don't feel like my plot is going anywhere and I really don't know what I'm doing. That being said, it isn't terrible and the writing is fairly easy-going. So far.

I'll be back at it for the next while, we'll see how much I get done.

So here I go for the next 30 days with a case of diet dr pepper, brand new writing gloves and plot bunnies eating the plants in my brain.

I hope something good comes out of all of this.

Haiku or two

So instead of planning like I should have been doing, i've fallen into the pre-writing despair of lack of plotitis.

So I wrote a couple haikus to describe how I feel.

The plot stops and flees
Before the climax is reached
They laugh in my face

Fantastic Premise
But nothing in the middle
Basically, I'm screwed

Sadie and Jasper
My characters have no clue
And neither do I


That's all...I'm sure it'll pass but tonight I'm feeling depressed. Lets hope tomorrow I wake up with a new found energy and drive to finish plotting out my novel.

Rescue Me

So it's almost here, that special time of year when I'm completely anti-social and busy pulling my hair out in between typing. Only a few more days until Nanowrimo!! Hooray!!! Dismay!!! Hooray!!! Dismay!!!

So my plot has turned an interesting corner and has become a pseudo-religious piece that is neck deep in the prophecies of the seven scrolls and seven seals in the Book of Revelations. It'll be fun and quite a bit different than anything else I've ever done. I still have a ton of planning to do though. The research I'm conducting is both easy and hard, easy because I have google at my fingertips and it's very simple to find out what the weather is like in Scotland in the fall. But all of the Biblical histories and differing commentaries on Revelations makes it difficult. It's a good thing I'm writing fiction and not a theology paper.

Why do I call this a pseudo-religious novel you ask? Well mostly because I'm taking huge liberties with some of the mythos and visions in Revelations. Mainly the 144,000 people with seals on their forehead that will protect them from the Tribulations before and during the Apocalypse. Now, since I'm not a scholar and I've never taken a theology class I'm obviously not going to be depicting these people accurately or even close to accurately (since no one actually knows who they are aside from the 12 tribes of Israel). They will however be an important group of people in my book and like all groups of people will have both good and bad seeds. Also, I'm not writing an apology book which frankly a lot of Christian literature is. Apology in the truest sense of the word means 'to defend' and I'm not writing a defense of my beliefs in any way. I'm writing an action/adventure novel that just happens to have Religious roots and Divine Intervention.

What's the difference between Blood of Renatus and Untitled Nano2008 you ask? I think that's another blog post for another time, this one is long enough already!

So here's a treat for you, the theme song to my nano novel. It's called "Rescue Me" by Pushmonkey. I don't actually know anything about this band, nor do I know any of their other songs. This one happened to download itself to my itunes (i dunno why it sometimes gives me free music but i won't complain) and I really like it. I think it fits well with my theme and my characters even though I'm pretty sure it's a secular song and a secular band.

Hey..can you save me in any way?
Even though I hate to say
I'm not understanding me

Chorus:
I need someone to rescue me.
When I get a little bit crazy,
I need to you to save me from myself.
I'm waiting for someone to rescue me.
When I go a little too far,
I just want to be sure that you're the only one to save me from
myself

No words control
You're not

Chorus

When I get a little bit crazy
When I go a little bit too far
I come to you

Hey can you see the warning signs?
Can you help me recognize
where it's me

chorus

save me from myself
save me from myself
save me from myself

Short Story

So I'm wanting to enter this short story competition from Writer's Digest. Here's one of the short stories I'm planning on entering, so far it's my only one ready. I am hoping to write and submit 3 total but we'll see. Tell me what you think!

According to the dictionary, a risk-taker is someone who risks loss or injury for excitement, and Jack was the epitome of a risk-taker. But, as he leapt from the plane at 20,000 feet, he wondered if that simple definition were enough. He didn’t really like to think of himself as a risk-taker. He much preferred to think of himself as an experience-taker. He didn’t take risks. He just grabbed life and ran, or jumped, as the case may be. He’d never once thought about the danger associated with rock climbing, sky diving, or base-jumping. All he thought about was the rush of adrenaline and the thrilling ecstasy that filled his soul.

He pulled the ripcord on his primary chute. It didn’t open. Hum Jack thought, that’s not supposed to happen. He would have shrugged his shoulders if the wind weren’t pressing against him so obnoxiously tight. He struggled to push his arms and legs out spread eagle in an effort to slow his fall as much as possible. Instead of panicking like a normal person, he instead wondered if he looked anything like Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” with his arms and legs splayed out as they were. He figured he only needed to be naked to be the perfect image of it—especially with his limbs moving at super speed up and down and side to side to keep himself horizontal. He wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of the thought, but he didn’t have enough air in his lungs.

Hum Jack thought again. If I were naked, I think I’d have a horrible case of wind burn from this. Better be glad I’m wearing clothes. It was odd though. Jack didn’t feel the thrill he so prized from this free fall. Instead, he felt something quite different; something he couldn’t name. The rush of adrenaline was there to be sure, but he wasn’t actually thrilled to be falling.

He pulled the ripcord on his secondary chute. It didn’t open either. Well, that’s not good. Jack was shit out of luck now. He watched the ground hurtle itself towards him and wondered if he’d actually feel himself go “splat” or not. He didn’t think he’d be able to feel it. He couldn’t really feel anything right now, and it was just wind and air pressing against him. Surely the ground wouldn’t actually hurt. He inwardly smiled. the “Vitruvian Man” was drawn in 2-D, I bet I really will look like him once I hit the ground. Hum, better turn over so it’s done correctly then.

Jack maneuvered his body, twisting and turning in the air to flip over, so that when he hit the ground he would be face up. Looking at the bright yellow sun, Jack named the curious feeling that sat uncomfortably in his stomach pretending to be a thrill. He was afraid. Actually, he was terrified that he wouldn’t get up and walk away from this like every other time he fell off of something. He didn’t want to pancake on the ground. He didn’t want to die, there were so many more life experiences left for him to take!

"You were falling, and now you’re flying. Well, I’m flying, you are being carried, Jack.”

Jack panicked more fiercely this time. He heard the sighing sound again and tried to crane his neck around to get a good look at whatever creature had a hold of him.

"Honestly” the thing said, “I don’t know why you humans put up such a fight. Would you kindly stop pummeling me? It’s really very annoying. You can’t imagine how hard it is to fly straight up while being kicked and elbowed practically to death.”

The thing snickered at its own private joke, and Jack frowned.

“I am not a thing,” the thing said, sounding annoyed. “I am an angel, obviously.”

And he was, Jack noted. He twisted his body around as much as he could in an effort to take a good look at it. The angel had his arms wrapped tightly around Jack’s torso, using Jack’s armpits for support. His wings were huge and suitably impressive for an angel. They were covered in feathers the pale blue and gray colors of an overcast sky. Jack felt the terror in his belly ebb just a little to be replaced with an equal amount of awe.

“Where’s your halo?” Jack said stupidly to the angel.

The angel scoffed. “If I drop you then you go straight to Hell. But, instead, here I am flying you up to Heaven’s gate, and you have the gall to ask me about an archaic piece of metal that was painted above heads during the Renaissance?” He huffed indignantly. “I’d think you’d ask me something a little more pertinent.”

Jack thought about this for a moment. He’d never been one to believe in Heaven or Hell, but perhaps this was God’s way of choosing who goes where instead of all the Biblical mumbo-jumbo he was taught in Sunday School as a child. It made sense, really—send an irritable angel to pick you up from the dead, and, if you annoy him too much, then you’re dropped into Hell. Hum, does that mean I’m dead?

“Of course you are Jack. You jumped out of an airplane without a working parachute. What did you expect? If you ask me, you’ve been knocking on Death’s door for years what with all this silly risk-taking business you’ve been about. I had bets with the other angels two years ago when you fell off that mountain. I lost.”

There was that term again, “risk-taking”. Well, now that he was dead, he supposed that the dictionary was right, and he really had been risking his life all these years. The angel halted abruptly in mid-air, and Jack was set down none too gently on top of a fluffy cumulus cloud. He looked about and the strangest image of furry little bears with symbols painted on their stomachs floated across his memory. He shook his head free of the thoughts.

Before him stood a tall but narrow gate carved out of one giant pearl. He couldn’t see anything behind or to the sides of the gate. Aside from the shiny, incandescent nature of the thing, it was rather boring looking. Jack had seen more ornate gates in front of people’s houses. A man was floating a few feet above the clouds directly in front of the gate. Jack thought he looked like Buddha.

“Ah, here we are,” said the angel. “My job’s done, and I’m off to find the next soul to be judged. Peter here will do the judging.” The angel gestured to the floating, Buddha-shaped man and then flew off into the sky.

“Well,” Peter peered at Jack, looking so deeply into his soul that Jack almost felt violated. “You’ll probably do. Look down over the edge for one last peek at your body, and tell me what you think.”

Jack did as he was told and stuck his head out over the edge of the cloud. With surprising clarity, he could see his broken and bloody body. It was as if he were only ten feet above ground instead of…where is Heaven anyway? He shrugged and thought for a moment as he watched a small crowd of people gather around his body hysterically crying and pointing. He scrambled back towards Peter after the moment was over and nodded.

“Well, I was right about one thing and wrong about the other,” Jack volunteered.

“Oh?” Peter raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yes. It seems I was wrong. I look nothing like the “Vitruvian Mman.” But, I was right that I didn’t feel a thing when I went ‘splat.’”

Peter chuckled softly, it sounded like a breeze. “Yes, you’ll do. You’re able to tell the difference between right and wrong. In you go Jack.”

He thumbed behind him as the Gate swung open far less dramatically than Jack thought it should. The terror in his stomach vanished completely and was replaced with the thrill that should have been there from the beginning. The wonderful feeling ran forcefully through his body, he shuddered in delight. He grinned happily as he stood and walked through the gate, disappearing into a warm, engulfing white light.

A couple things

So I wanted to share some news with everyone reading!

First of all my favorite (and only) sister, Kellee, became engaged to her boyfriend Brett on Saturday. It's great news and we're all very happy for her. No official date has been set yet, although they're thinking of sometime in July or August. I'm pretty sure the wedding will be down in Orlando as they both live there which means I'll get to take a few vacations down there to "help" yay! :) I'm such a good sister aren't I? I'm excited about the wedding, I'm sure it'll be fantastic and I'm really happy for Kellee.

Second of all my cousin Nikki got married unexpectedly this weekend. She's still planning a Catholic wedding and reception for next summer but I guess she and Tom just didn't want to wait any longer. I don't blame her really, she's feeling pretty good right now even with the Chemo treatment she's on and she's feeling her mortality. I think she didn't want to wait another 9 months until their Catholic wedding date given her health. She and Tom got married in a little chapel with just their immediate family present. I think it's good for both of them, and as far as I can tell it's really helping Nikki's spirits. Which reminds me that I need to give her a call.

That's all i have to report, I haven't done any writing or much planning really but I intend to do one or both of those things this week. I hope everyone is having a good week!

You have chosen...wisely? Poorly?

So the network my studies are on has been taken offline for the next 30 minutes or so and therefore I can't work and have time to post something. The past couple months has given me little time to do much outside of work. Additionally, since work has been extra soul-sucking I haven't had any creative mojo to write, post or really do anything except veg and watch some TV while trying to stuff my soul back in. I'm pretty sure that my office has Dementors floating down the cube rows during our most stressful times just so we are that much more depressed.

Enough about that, I've not written too much lately due to the above but I have decided much to the chagrin of those who have voted in the poll to go with Option 3. I've decided to definitely not work on BoR during November. I need to think about something else completely. I also really want to write something that i can finish within November, something shorter and much much less complex. I have zero desire to write an epic, high fantasy novel during November-even one that's half way through. The truth is, I'm not even sure if I can finish BoR during November, everytime i think about the thing it just gets even bigger in my mind.

I thought for a long time about going with Option 1 but there are complications there. First of all a 10k word short story is very long and 5 of them together in a series are unlikely to be published in the type of magazine I want. But in order to reach the Nano goal I'd have to write each one that long which is a bad idea. Plus, I'd also have to come up with 5 unique plots and weave them together-a daunting task, even for short stories.

So we're going with Option 3, which has changed quite a bit in my thinking since I first wrote about it. It's not going to be a 3 part YA novel. I'm kind of excited about it actually, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be something akin to the love child of JJ Abrams and Neil Gaiman-if they could infuse their thoughts and ideas into my head. I'm hoping to spend the next 6 weeks planning it carefully so that it doesn't run away with me. We'll see what happens, it should be fun though. I'm looking forward to thinking and writing about something else for a change.

Even the best and most successful authors can take years to write a BFF, and I am certainly neither of those. I imagine that even when I finish BoR, it'll take years to edit and revise and rewrite. In the meantime, I really don't want to squeeze my brain so narrowly that I only think of the BoR world and nothing else. Writing this novel in November should (in theory) be short and easy when compared to my epic BFF. It's certainly a lot simpler and since it's going to be set in modern times it'll be a million times easier to figure out things (like distance, location etc) that you constantly have to think about in fantasy. There's a danger with that because you have to be sure of your facts, but with the google and wiki machines that's fairly easy to do.

But since it's me, I can't stray completely away from Fantasy so my main characters will have special powers. But it's going to be like government agency type of thing and it'll be very cool I think.

Sorry to disappoint any of you fans out there but don't worry, it isn't like I'm stopping writing BoR. I'll also continue to work on it up until November, planning won't take up all of my creative time-although again, work might suck my soul out some more. That beast [Blood of Renatus]will be finished eventually and it should be awesome when it is. But in the meantime I'm going to take a break from the BFF world and work on something else.

Also, if anyone reading this is interested in Nanowrimo please don't hesitate to ask me any questions. It really is a great way to get started writing or to jump start your creative juices. I'd certainly recommend doing it, not only is it fun but it does give you a huge sense of accomplishment.

Group Meme 3

So in order to follow along with Sarah, here is my mosaic...

If you want to create your own, then follow these simple instructions (stolen from Sarah's blog):

The Concept

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.


2. Using only the first page of results, and pick one image.


3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

The Questions

1. What is your first name?


2. What is your favorite food? right now?


3. What high school did you go to?


4. What is your favorite color?


5. Who is your celebrity crush?


6. What is your favorite drink?


7. What is your dream vacation?


8. What is your favorite dessert?


9. What do you want to be when you grow up?


10. What do you love most in life?


11. What is one word that describes you?


12. What is your flickr name?

1. Old chapel in Brittany, 2. lasagna photo shoot, 3. IMG_1527, 4. Green Womble House, 5. City Walk - Universal Studios Orlando, 6. Offering to the Gods (who must be crazy!), 7. A witness of time, 8. coffee and chocolate mousse cake, 9. Writer, 10. Autumn walk, 11. ...it´s time to be a bit lazy..., 12. Bursting Aurora

Inspiration

For some reason I'm feverishly writing tonight. You'll have noticed a nice big jump in the word count meters. Huzzah!

I finished one chapter and am two paragraphs into the next (which was, coincidentally unplanned but needs to happen now).

Just a quick note for those of you voting for me to finish BoR for November (and shame on you for voting more than once!). If I progress too much more in BoR before November I won't have enough material to finish 50k words and so I won't write it. What I do is still up to my discretion but if I hit even 80k then that doesn't leave me enough. And I doubt anyone wants me to stop working on my book completely until november just because.

So don't vote more than once, and sincerely think about what you'd like to see from me.

If you're lucky I'll have an even bigger word count before the end of the night. We'll see what happens!

Nanowrimo preperations

I know we're quite a ways away from Nanowrimo but it's been on my mind.

For those of you who don't know what Nanowrimo is, I'll enlighten you briefly. It stands for "National Novel Writing Month" and during the month of November, the goal is to write a minimum of 50k words of a novel. There are a bunch of rules and other information that you can peruse on the website if you want more details.

Last year I began The Blood of Renatus during Nano, although I didn't come up with the (current) title until chapter 13. I spent a painstaking amount of time in October planning for the novel only to have a majority of it change and go in an entirely different direction. I blame Rafe. He was too moody.

Anyway I'm having a bit of a conundrum here because I don't know what to do for Nano. You're supposed to write something brand new, and not continue on a current project. Meaning that if I want to play by the rules I won't write a word on BoR during November even though I'm sure more than 50k words left to write. Sarah, of course, would tell me to just finish BoR before November so that it isn't an issue. I could do it, i mean i wrote 50k words in one month last November but it's increasingly hard to find time especially when I am admittedly disenchanted with BoR.

So here's what I'm going to do, I have several ideas that I could start in November. I'm really not ever short of ideas and there are a few that consistently stick out in my head. So I'm going to give you a very brief synopsis of my ideas and let you choose what I work on come November.

Jack of all Trades and the Masters of One:
A series of 5 short stories that all connect together. It's an Earth-based fantasy in which a human (or several, i haven't decided) must go on a quest in each realm (sea, sky, underworld, land) in order to prevent the Apocalypse. An interesting premise, and it could be fun to write.

Flare
Another fantasy novel but not NEARLY as epic as BoR (I couldn't handle another epic fantasy right now). It begins with a feisty teenage girl named Flare trying to wake up her drunk father who has passed out in an alley. She mistakenly gets accused of being a thief and trying to steal from him and is thrown in jail with her accuser for starting a fight. While in jail mysterious assailants try to kill the man who accused her of being a thief and they escape together. The rest of the story ensues.

Open and Shut
A 3 part YA novel about people who have the power to either "open" or to "shut". They work in pairs known as Partners and there are very few in the world. A pair of Partners have known each other since childhood but do not get along and so choose to not work together. They are called in to figure out a way to open Sealed room that has been shut for hundreds of years. However, opening the room proves to be a huge mistake and dormant, evil forces are let loose to pray upon the unsuspecting population.

Something entirely different (no working title yet)
Not a fantasy! A coming of age story about a young woman just out of college working as a barista at a local coffee shop. She battles life lessons in learning how to deal with her two older sisters and through the deaths of several family members. Also includes girly romance.

Finish Blood of Renatus
If I focus like I did last November on BoR I'll be able to finish at least the first draft for sure. It would, however, be going against the rules of nanowrimo.

Part of the problem with starting something new is that I'm going to need to take several dedicated weeks to plan out whatever it is I write. It might be fun to start something new however taking on a full novel (which is generally much longer than the obligatory 50k of nano) might be more than what I want to take on. So what are your opinions on the matter? Please vote in the poll and I encourage you to comment!

Alas, the end of summer vacation is upon us

Well I'm back from the beach. I was planning on waiting until I uploaded some pictures to post but seeing as I'm at work and trying to not work I figure I'll post now.

My vacation was great, too long and not long enough at the same time oddly enough. It was hot, I got stung by a jellyfish, twisted my ankle and got to lay on the beach, pick up seashells, and go swimming nearly every day. Well i didn't get stung by a jellyfish everyday, that was just once sadly. I also scribbled away in my new Moleskine 3 new ideas that will demand fleshing out at a (much) later date. Sadly I didn't do too much writing on BoR but that's okay. In fact I was hardly on my laptop at all during the whole week, it just didn't seem right to focus on my laptop when I could be outside in the sun. Everything about the beach, especially the area I was in feels like home. The smells, sun, sand and salt remind me of happy times and a wonderful childhood. Plus I just love being lazy and laying out soaking up sun (except when stupid jellyfish attack me).

I had a bittersweet moment on Thursday when I drove from Myrtle Beach to Southport and Oak Island meeting my childhood friend Lauren for lunch. My family owned a beach house on Oak Island for almost the first 20 years of my life. Some of my very best childhood memories take place in that house so visiting it was both painful and jubilant for me. I loved seeing the Brambles, they lived (still do actually) across the street and their daughter Lauren became a second sister. She's now married with a 1 year old son, but we picked up like we always do and it was almost like we hadn't seen each other in 5 years. It was quite painful for me to walk up the stairs to MY beach house and peek in the screened-in porch to see our deck furniture that was sold with the house. It's emotional just to write about it in remembrance, especially because of my grandfather's passing less than a year ago. It was our special place, my grandparents and the rest of my family and it was a huge part of my life. Some day, I vow that I'll have another special place. If I'm lucky then my family will be able to enjoy the love and peace a place like that can bring, even if it isn't my beach house anymore.

The ironic and sad part is that this marks, as it did in many years past, the end of summer vacation. Most schools start back up in a week or two and this would be about the time I would return home from the beach after spending several weeks or months there to start school back up always thinking I'd be able to return the following summer. It was a sad parting the last time I was there and it wasn't any happier of a parting this time. However, at least now I'm old enough to return to the area whenever I have the time or money even if it isn't the way I'd like.

My grandmother has vowed to never again go to that beach, it's too painful for her. She hated selling the beach house and I think it's even worse now with my grandfather gone. Days like Thursday make me see her point of view on the matter a little bit more clearly. I can completely empathize with her decisions and don't fault her for it at all, it is painful and we can't go back to those lazy summers no matter how much we want to. That being said, I think the happiness that place brings me is far stronger than the pain and I'm pretty sure my grandfather would want me to spend as much time at our beach as possible. If he could, he'd be swimming out there with me. Maybe he was, in spirit at least. I miss it every summer and I'll definitely be going back.

It was a good vacation.

To not be a hobby writer

The frequently reader of my blog might notice the shiny new word count meter over on the sidebar. Goals don't work for me. I just don't think about them really unless someone reminds me. *coughSarahcough* However, at least during Nanowrimo I was thrilled to see my progress bar go up and up until I hit my goal. So the progress bar is back and the idea is that it will continue to go up.

The goal of 130k total words isn't definite, it might take more or less to actually finish but I think that's a fairly good guess for at least the first draft. The second bar you see is for weekly progress. I'm starting with a weekly goal of 5000 words per week, which is less than 1000 per day. I figure doing a weekly word count is going to be easier to maintain than a daily one. If I do somehow manage to maintain a 5000 words/week pace then I will finish the first draft in 12 weeks.

This should help me keep on track and stop me from going any further down the "hobby writer" path. Hobby writers never actually finish books, or if they do it takes many years. I don't want that. All forward progress! :)

Also, completely off topic to this post those of you who are fans of Robert Jordan really need to check out Brandon Sanderson's latest blog post about him. It's really moving and well done.

vacations, pneumonia, iphone and books

So it's been quite some time since my last blog post. Many factors have contributed to this, well not many really just two main ones.

1) I was on vacation for nearly a week
2) I've had walking pneumonia for the past 2 weeks.

I've been feeling very grumpy, probably due to the whole pneumonia thing. It certainly makes you appreciate a good pair of lungs when things like going up the stairs make you winded and doubled over in a coughing fit. Walking Pneumonia is basically Pneumonia lite, which means I don't have to be hospitalized and I can "walk" around....but not hike (i found that out the hard way). I've had the worst cough ever for two weeks, and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. I coughed so hard one morning that I made myself vomit. Supposedly the cough will linger for quite some time although the breathing problems should go away soon, that part is getting better. I haven't used my Albuterol inhaler all day!

Being sick has stifled the creative process greatly. In fact, pretty much all I've been able to focus on is keeping my coughing under control and you know...breathing. However, while I was in Washington I did have an opportunity to set my laptop up facing a beautiful mountain lake and do some very peaceful writing. I'm happy to say that during that afternoon in between coughing fits I filled out the rest of my book. I now have a chapter summery for every chapter from here until the end. Isn't that lovely news? Also I did a lot of actual writing but that's not nearly as exciting to me as having everything down plot-wise for the rest of the book. I have something like 50-70k MORE words to write. It's a higher number than I originally thought but probably more accurate given that it's all planned out now.

Of course it's a bit sad that the reason I spent the afternoon writing was because I couldn't go on the hike with my friends. I went on a short hike the previous day and thought I was going to die so the longer hike was out of the question. My lungs still haven't forgiven me.

In other news, I finally got my iphone. Huzzah! BTW, Todd I couldn't respond to your comment because you don't have a blog on which I could comment! Yes I got my iphone, yes it's the same phone number (unlike yours, what is it again?) so you have no excuse not to call me! Seriously, it is THE coolest piece of technology that I've ever owned and I don't care what anyone says it's the coolest PHONE ever. All you blackberry fans out there may think the blackberry is "better" but it is certainly not cooler! Or sexier. So Fie on you Blackberry!

I'm going on vacation the first week of august, this time to a much warmer climate. It's kind of cool that I will have visited the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean in less than a month. I'm going to Myrtle Beach and I sincerely plan to spend the entire vacation on the beach, unless it's raining. I'll do lots of writing I hope, but I'm going to also focus on soaking up the sun.

I've read a couple books during the past week or so. It was kind of nice to actually read something, I didn't have the brain power to do anything creative myself but I haven't sat down to read a book in ages. The first book I read was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman . I'm not interested in doing a book review but I enjoyed it. I did struggle, at first, with the main character. He just seemed exactly like Arther Dent from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But I got past that fairly quickly and really enjoyed the book. It's very clever and well done. The second book, which I read this weekend actually, was Sunshine by Robin McKinley. I liked the book but it was written in 1st person which sometimes throws me off (not always though, she did a good job) but there were a lot of internal that felt very long and wordy. However, it was probably one of the funnier vampire stories I've read and the "romance" is pretty atypical. Also her depiction of an "Earth gone bad" is very cool. They're both good and I'd recommend them both. Especially if you like the supernatural as they both deal with that.

Well it's after 10 and I have a very uncomfortable pressure on my chest which means it's time to take my steroid inhaler and get some sleep. I'm sure I'll write again before the week is up.

Conversations with characters part 1

*ahem* if my characters lived in modern times...and spoke to me


Rafe: Dramatic sigh
Gabriel: So Rafe wants to know why you hate him
Rafe: Another Dramatic sigh
Me: What are you talking about? I love Rafe!
Rafe: Eye Roll
Gabriel: Yeah but you haven't written anything for him in a really long time. He's getting really moody about it.
Me: Rafe's always moody
Gabriel: I know right? I don't even know why he's so upset. I mean I only get like two chapters in the whole book!
Rafe: Taps his foot impatiently
Gabriel: Oh right, he still wants to know why you hate him.
Me: Rafe, it's just that you're so moody! You're hard to write!
Rafe: But I'm so very sexy!
Me: Yes you are
Gramma Rosie: Why if I had some chocolate....
Me: Rosie! That's enough!
Gabriel: looks at Gramma Rosie I don't actually ever have to meet her do I?
Rafe: Yes, and she'll pinch your arse too
Gabriel: gulps
Katze: Oh please, she's not that bad you big baby!
Rafe: Hey there hottie, can we make out now?
Katze: dramatic sigh I don't know, ask the author!
Gabriel: Hey...you look familiar...do I know you from somewhere?
Me: You're all so needy! You wonder why I don't want to write you lot!
Katze: shrugs and inspects her fingernails
Me: Fine, Rafe i don't hate you, I'll finish your chapter as soon as I finish your lover girl's chapter. Gabriel I think you will have more than two chapters so rejoice!
Gabriel, Rafe, Katze: Huzzah!
Katze: sooooo when DO I get to make out with Rafe?
Me: Dramatic Sigh

Nothing to do with writing

I'm getting an iphone today...well assuming they haven't sold out by the time I get to the AT&T store.

I can't even tell you how excited I am. I've been pretending I'm not excited for months but now that the iPhone 2.0 is out i just can't hold back. I'm such a gadgety geek girl.

There is a lot of "controversy" in the geekdom concerning the iPhone vs other mediums, namely the blackberry. Apparently a Blackberry is "better" for business needs and I'll concede to that. However, it's also true that the iphone does everything and more for like 90% of the population. Since i don't need this new phone for work and iPhones are sooooooo slick and pretty then that's what I'm getting.

It does however, mean i'm going to have to bite the bullet a little bit more and start using the google functions a lot. But that's okay, it'll be nice having a calender at my fingertips. I'm really bad at remembering dates and plans and whatnot. Plus have you SEEN how cool this phone is? Seriously, the coolest thing ever!

I really hope they aren't sold out.

The Epilogue

So I just wrote the epilogue for The Blood of Renatus. I know I said I was going to focus on finishing the beginning and here I am writing the very end. I couldn't help it though, it was nagging at me and I just had to write it. I wasn't even planning on writing an epilogue, in general I don't really like prologue's or epilogues but I guess my book just wanted to have one.

It's very short, only about 1300 words and very creepy. I however like it very much. I'm sure I'll expand it and make it better at some other date but it just needed to get on paper or my brain was going to explode.

So the interesting thing about the epilogue is that I write it from the perspective of flowers and a tree. It starts with:

The flowers in the High Blood Priest’s antechamber deep within the Circle of Blood had no concept of time. They did, however, realize that they had not fed in far longer than needed.

And ends with:

They praised the tree for bringing him back and would have smiled had they had mouths. But they didn’t smile. They were, after all, only flowers.

Anyway, I quite like it and I feel better for writing it. It was just gnawing on my brain even though I'm not even close to finishing the book. It's exciting though, I like knowing that I have the rest of the book planned out i detail. Other scenes are screaming at me to write them and my fingers are itching to do as they bid.

Don't tell my boss I wrote this while at work though...shhhh! :)

Peach juice and other things

So I just dripped peach juice down the front of my shirt. I think I'd be more upset about it if that peach hadn't been so delectable. I've been on a bit of a peach kick lately, i think because it's summer. I even bought some peach scented lotion and body spray last week. It smells exactly like the peach ice cream I used to make with my family at the beach.

What does this have to do with my writing you ask? Absolutely nothing.

Sadly I have little news to report in the writing department. I haven't written so much as a sentence since Wednesday night and even then I only added about 600 words. I have, however, become even more of a Brandon Sanderson fangirl this past week. Which is funny because I still have yet to fully finish any of his novels. I skimmed the last third of Elantris and I'm still slowly reading Mistborn: The Final Empire.

He's been posting a free e-book on his website and I hadn't really looked at it until this weekend. He does something *super* cool here, not only is he posting a free book of his but he has been posting each draft version. Which means you can compare (using the MS word compare function) version 4 with version 5 and see exactly what line edits his editor asked him to make. I took a brief glance at version 1 and compared it with version 5 for fun. It's like night and day difference, red lines everywhere. It gives us aspiring authors a realistic view of what fiction looks like in the humble beginnings, even for published authors. He also has some really great columns on his website that made me seriously want to be his best friend. Especially the one on The DaVinci Code.

Okay so now that I've embarrassed myself with my fangirl tendencies I'll move onto a different topic. So I'm planning on finishing the "new" chapter 3 this weekend. I really want to have moved on from this beginning by the time I go out of town Tuesday. Since my reorganization of the beginning the rest of the book has fallen neatly into place and I feel tons better about where the book was going. It's interesting how sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to fix problems that happen much much later. I'm not at all remotely interested in editing the original first several chapters anytime soon. Frankly that will be a huge task, one that I'm not looking forward to at all. I think i might just end up rewriting chapter 4 which was the original chapters 1-3 that i have since smooshed into one. It's not (too) terrible but it no longer fits with how I've changed things. Anyway I'm not going to bother doing that for awhile, just thinking about editing my extra moody Rafe chapter(s) makes me cringe.

Once chapter 3 is finished I will move back to where I left off at chapter 16. It's kind of nice to have 16 chapters fully completed (if in need of heavy, heavy editing). After that it should be smooth sailing as far as plotting goes. Assuming the writing goes smoothly I hope, I just might see the end of this book before the end of the decade. After that? Who knows. I'll think about it when I get there.

Chapter 2

So I finished chapter 2 tonight. Well it's the "new" chapter 2 post my re-organization of the beginning of the novel. I have to admit, I really struggled with this chapter. It wasn't the same struggle that I've had with other chapters. Take chapter 11...that chapter sucked so much to write. It's a total filler chapter, it's boring and blah. But that wasn't the problem at all that I faced with chapter 2.

Chapter 2 is a Shay chapter, Shay is normally very easy for me to write. I write her chapters more quickly than I do any of the rest of my characters and I wrote the first half of this chapter very fast and very easily. Then I stalled I stopped at a scene in which a villain is introduced and Shay gets into trouble. I felt uncomfortable writing the scene because I had to write probably the most evil villain I think I've ever created. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that he's the creepiest, most evil, most insane dude ever. And frankly he makes my previous worries about Savitr (Shay's brother) being too mean seem like nothing.

You know, I probably didn't even make the scene that bad. I know I held back somewhat because I was so uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure I was projecting all the evilness that I know about this scary, creepy dude onto the scene. Anyway it was hard for me to write it and I feel like my skin is still crawling after writing that villain. Sheesh!

So some updated stats, Chapter 2 turned out to be about 4500 words bringing my total word count to about 66,100 words. I still have a very long way to go but I'm making progress. Chapter 3 has been started but I haven't gotten very far in it. It's a Katze chapter, kind of a fun one too, she gets to be her crazy self without Rafe balancing her.

I wrote about 2100 words tonight, probably the biggest chunk in one sitting in awhile. It's good, I like feeling like I'm moving forward. I like making progress even if my book was poorly planned and my chapters uncomfortable to write. it's still good. Plus I know that Shay will be just fine and I have the death of this villain planned very nicely. :)

Books that have changed my life

In the spirit of Group blog #2 I'm going to write about a few books that have changed my life. For a look at other memes on this subject take a look at Sarah's blog and her friend's blog. So in no particular order here they are...

Sweet Valley Twins The Magic Christmas by Francine Pascal

So this book I remember reading sometime in elementary school. As a child I was a voracious reader (I still am) I read books faster than my parents could buy them for me. Part of that meant I didn't really remember all the books that I read unfortunately. However this book I remember in vivid detail. I loved the Sweet Valley Twins series as a whole and this one in particular left me with love and devotion for books that was previously unknown to me. It also introduced me to the world of fantasy. Jessica and Elizabeth are transported to another world in this book with two handsome princes that were trapped in dolls. They venture to a magical world where they can do magic and have to save a kingdom from the evil doer who has taken over. It was also about a rift between sisters and how the little things aren't as important as they seem. This book influenced not only my burgeoning love for the fantasy genre but also taught me moral lessons on how to get along with my sister-especially at Christmas.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

So this book I don't remember quite as well as the above. This was however the first book I remember being moved to tears. It's about two best friends living in Denmark during the German occupation. This book shaped how I feel about equality among people and their religions and anything else for that matter. Being different faiths did not matter to these little girls to the extent that the girl of Jewish faith was taken in by her best friends' Christian family. It's a powerful book, especially to my 10 year old mind. It taught me lessons about the value of friendship and the importance of realizing that people are different and that's okay. There are huge moral lessons in this book, I would encourage everyone of all ages to read it but especially children. Everyone should know about the Holocaust and everyone should learn about true friendship and doing whatever it takes to help them.

The Eye of the World, Book 1 of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

This book has probably been the most influential in regards to both my reading and writing habits. I'm pretty sure I've read this book at least a dozen times and it is still just as good-if not better-than the first time I read it when I was in Jr. High. The first "epic" fantasy that I've read by arguably the most influential authors in the genre. The entire series is fantastic, although some of the later books (particularly book 8 and book 10) are very weak when compared to book 1. If you've ever had an interest in reading epic fantasy then you must start with this book. Complex characters, a huge world, unique magic systems, quest to save the world, talking trees, expansive action scenes, secret societies...it's all there and all awesome. I started writing before I read this book however it was The Eye of the World that made me want to write fantasy. It stirred a passion in me to read every piece of fantasy I could get my hands on. Sadly Robert Jordan passed away from a blood disease prior to completing the Wheel of Time series. However the wonderful Brandon Sanderson is currently taking on the task of completing it using Mr. Jordan's extensive notes and he was personally selected to write the final book by Mr. Jordan's wife. Anyway, if you only ever read one fantasy novel in your whole life you should read this one. It's fantastic.

The Iliad by Homer
I'm pretty sure that if you haven't read the Iliad or the Odyssey then you need to. The Iliad was one of the few books that I refused to throw away after my ceiling collapsed onto it. The poor book was drenched and probably should have been disposed of but I simply couldn't do it. Every page of my water damaged copy is covered in notes from the class I took on it. The Iliad is chock full of morals and lessons on how to act proper in Greek society. It was a how to guide for ancient Greek and is largely still applicable. It's not just a classic story, it isn't just one of the most ancient pieces of literature out there. You can watch all of the movies about the fall of Troy and Helen and Achilles and still only grasp the tiniest bit of all of culture and life that is in the Iliad. I remember one of the (many) battle scenes in which the entire scene is written "Bob son of George son of Frank killed Sam son of Harry son of James" and it can be pretty tedious to read those parts. However if you don't then you'll miss tiny lines that go like this "Bob son of George son of Frank was about to kill Sam son of Harry son of James but they recognized each other and realized that Sam son of Harry son of James had dinner with Bob's family before the war started so guest right still stands and so they did not kill each other". Tiny little gems of wisdom, the struggle Hector faces fighting for his family and country but knowing he will die. Achilles battle within himself for glory or long life-he cannot have both. Books like the Iliad withstand time not because of their age but because they are still relevant. So go read this book, buy it and love it and let it teach you about life and group settings and sociology like it did me.


Those four books are not at all the only books that have influenced me, but they are the ones that jump out clearly. I certainly have a huge number of favorite books and I think it would be impossible to pick out what has influenced me out of each of those books. Books, like anything else can have whatever impact you want it to have. Some books are there only for entertainment value but others teach you things or influence your choices and thinking. Sometimes you don't realize the impact a book will have on you until much much later. So everyone, keep on reading!

Goals and Tiredness

So I've been feeling pretty tired and slightly under the weather lately. I think it's my lack of days off. Luckily the 4th is right around the corner and I'll have a day off there. Not to mention the mini-vacation I'll have in mid-July and the full on vacation I'll have in August. But that's all in the future and doesn't help my lack of sleep nor does it help my lack of days of work right now.

In one of Brandon Sanderson's recent blog posts he mentions that he isn't cut out for a "real" job. Some days I'm pretty sure I'm not either even though I (generally) like my job. I certainly like my benefits and paycheck. I also found out recently that my friend Becky is planning on quitting her job in a year and a half after she is vested with her company to focus more on her own writing. This is both an uplifting and depressing thing to hear, uplifting for her and for the aspirations of writers in general and depressing because it's not me doing it.

That being said I think if I ever managed to finish anything I might allow myself the freedom to do that. After all Daren did move out to LA to pursue his dreams so why not give myself that same chance? No reason at all except for the whole bill paying thing. So okay it isn't a viable option right now but it's nice to dream about it.

So in order to get anywhere close to that I need to set some goals. My brain has turned to mush with the lack of sleep and increase of work and just everything. I should set some realistic goals for myself so that I finish my novel and can figure out what I want to do next. But there's no point in thinking about the next step until I have something to show.

So okay...set some goals...right...what exactly IS a realistic goal anyway? I'll come up with one and you guys can all chime in and come up with something as specific or as general as you want. I'll even make a sidebar, that might help me stay motivated!

Goals:

1. Finish the first draft of Blood of Renatus NO LATER THAN September 1st.
2. uhmmmmm your turn
   

Better get moving!

So I spent the weekend at the Froeschle Farm with most of Daren's cousins and all of his aunts and uncles on the (you guessed it) Froeschle side. Anyway back in December I promised Eli and Paul a draft of The Blood of Renatus whenever I'm finished. Eli especially is an avid reader of all things-especially fantasy-and it was nice to talk about my book with someone in the family that wanted to hear about details and who cared about the fantasy aspects. So pretty much the first words out of Eli's mouth to me were "So how's your book coming along? You promised you'd email me the draft remember?" Yes Eli, I remember!

I had to explain that I stopped working on it for a few months due to some unfortunate and fortunate happenings in life. Mainly the whole apartment collapsing fiasco and the subsequent house buying funness. There is nothing like a push from someone other than your husband or best friend truly interested in what your doing to make you feel motivated. It felt good to have someone ask me about it who I know isn't asking simply to make conversation. I also introduced him to Brandon Sanderson while I was down there as I'm STILL reading Mistborn. So hurrah there! :)

In other news, I nervously emailed the wonderful George RR Martin today. I've had a few (brief) messages back and forth with Brandon Sanderson before but that didn't make me any less nervous to contact the illustrious Mr. Martin. I guess I shouldn't be nervous about that kind of thing but to a fan of reading and writing and all things literary it's the same thing as talking to a movie star. If (hopefully when) he writes back I'm pretty sure that's one email I'll never delete.

Also I wanted to mention that Daren and I watched No Country For Old Men on Friday. Now I'm not going to write a review nor will I post any spoilers. All I want to say is that this movie ranks only slightly above The Fountain. This is not a good thing. The Fountain was arguably the worst movie I've ever seen. That includes all of the horrible, cheesy kung-fu movies from the 80's that I love to watch. Seriously...why in the world did No Country for Old Men win Best Picture?

Silly characters!

So as many of you know but some of you don't I recently reorganized the entire beginning of my novel adding three chapters. So now my original chapter 1 is chapter 4. I can't even tell you how much better it is this way. I was trying to cram so much information into the original chapter 1 that it felt bogged down and boring and pleh. I tend to struggle with info-dumping and while I know I'm still doing it in the new Chapter 1 it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Although that unfortunately or fortunately means a huge bit of editing now for chapter 4.

Well I was working the other night on new chapter 2 which happens to be a Shay chapter. Shay has always been one of my favorite characters to write. She's so easy compared to writing the moodiness that is Rafe or Katze. Light hearted and bubbly she tends to be a much happier character than the rest of my lot. It's such a great contrast to me and hopefully to the reader because Shay is an "enemy" priestess but she's so much more normal than the "good" guys. Of course don't make assumptions, everything changes.

But the weirdest thing happened. I was writing a scene in which Shay had just woken up from having passed out. Her "good" brother Saif was comforting her and then in walks her "bad" brother Savitr. Now Shay, my nice and sweet Shay is really really mean to Savitr and i can't decide what to do about it. She was mean to him and now he's being unforgivably mean back (because that's what he does the wanker). My problem here is that I don't actually want any sympathy to be garnered for Savitr, he's cruel and mean and doesn't care that he's cruel and mean. Shay is supposed to have all the sympathy! But when I go look at that scene i think "wow, Shay baited him and I actually feel sorry for him. I bet his siblings ganged up on him a lot and that's why he's so nasty." Thoughts like that shouldn't occur!

At the same time, however, it wouldn't even be remotely realistic to have Shay actually be nice to Savitr, plus he does deserve it. So I'm torn between how to make Shay (in her first appearance) her normal nice self and still be condescending to her brother. She is a bit of a spitfire which lands her in quite a bit of trouble but it's supposed to be spunky not crass. I have enough of that to deal with in my other characters (I'm talking to you Katze, your royal moodiness!).

Any thoughts from fellow writers out there who understand that sometimes the characters do whatever they want even if it doesn't fit?

Revelations and Endings

I've come to a revelation about the ending of my book. But I'm not going to tell you anything about it except to say that I have decided upon an ending for book one and it feels nice. It certainly isn't what i originally planned but obviously the original plan wasn't working.

What this means is that the block that was preventing me from finishing the last 1/3 of the novel is no longer there. I had switched to re-tooling the entire beginning because the end was being elusive. It feels like a nice breath of fresh air now and it has propelled my mind into the planning of book 2 which is nice.

So now I have to focus on finishing the new beginning of the novel and I can go back to where I left off in chapter 16 and move forward. Certainly the beginning needed to be changed, it also wasn't working. My original chapter 1 is now chapter 4 and the book flows much better. Plus it was pretty important to put Gabriel in the beginning of the book instead of not appearing until chapter 20 or so.

Anyway my point is I see the road clearly now for the first time in several months which is both exciting and daunting at the same time.

Also, if you haven't already read my excerpt then you should. There is a hyperlink in the links column if you don't feel like scrolling down to the last post. And yes I know there is a typo in the first paragraph and no I'm not going to fix it at this point.

Despondant and an Excerpt

So I've been feeling fairly depressed the past couple days. It's hard to explain really but sometimes when a person is undertaking such a monumental task (i.e. writing a novel) it becomes overwhelming. Lately my mind has been thinking about all the things I should know to get into the industry. I should know publishers and agents, I should be up to date on what said publishers and agents are looking for. But I'm not and it's been getting me down a little bit.

Of course none of that impacts my story whatsoever and while my goal is to be published eventually I'm not going to write my books based on what the industry wants today because it could and probably will change tomorrow.

So that being said I figure I'll go ahead and post Chapter 1 of The Blood of Renatus. Please keep in mind that this is a ROUGH draft and although I've gone through it several times and haven't noticed any glaringly obvious errors I'm sure some of you will. Posting it here in no way means it's polished and publishable but that being said I am quite happy with this chapter even if it is a little longer than it probably should be (it's about 5700 words). So there you have it, I hope it doesn't have too many errors!

Word Count

I was going to post my excerpt for you avid readers today however I left my flash drive at home so alas I cannot. You'll just have to wait a bit longer for that. In the meantime you should scroll down a few posts and read the hilarious 500 word auto-summary.

I have good news! I wrote a bunch of new chapter 2 this weekend hooray! I'm getting closer to finishing book 1. After I looked up some page length vs word count for already published authors I've decided on an ending for Book 1. If I were to end the book where I originally planned it would be far too long. I'll give you an example. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a nice quick read at about 320 pages. This book is only 77k words. Granted the typeface of this book is larger than what you would find in most adult fantasy books but still 320 pages is nothing to sneeze at. I'm currently at 62k words and I have roughly 10 more chapters to write at my current book end. I average between 3k-5k words a chapter which means I have between 30k-50k MORE words to write if I maintain my pace. This would put my book at somewhere between 90-110k words. Now realistically I'd want my book to be closer to 110k than 90 however according to Brandon Sanderson the "sweet spot" for Fantasy publishing is currently between 90-120 for unpublished authors. He did however mention that his first book was closer to 200k. Probably if I ended Book 1 where I originally planned it would be about that.

I don't want to rush the story to squeeze it into something a literary agent or a publisher would prefer but I also don't want to cut it short. I am afraid that the designated spot would leave a reader largely unsatisfied. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how I feel when I get to that point. Don't most books have at largely positive ending, a victory for the good guys? Maybe it's good that if I end the book where I'm thinking that won't happen but then again what would that mean for Book 2?

I realize most of you can't give me any advice because you had no idea what I'm thinking or where the book is headed at all. That being said you should still give me comment love, I only get comments from Sarah and Mike :p

So I promised I'd post more today

But I'm really busy at work today so I don't have time to write anything. So I'll leave you with another picture of how I felt this morning...and nearly everyday.


more cat pictures

Procrastination

I'm pretty sure this picture exemplifies me most of the time.


more cat pictures


I'll write more tomorrow...

Foiled, Foil and foils

Taken from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/foil

• Foil –verb (used with object)
  1. to keep (a person) from succeeding in an enterprise, plan, etc.
• foil –noun Fencing.
  1. a flexible four-sided rapier having a blunt point.
• foil-noun
  1. One that by contrast underscores or enhances the distinctive characteristics of another

I my friends have been foiled, will use a foil and have created foils.

Last night I sat down at Doozen's coffee house planning on finishing a chapter of my book. I had my ipod, I was focused (as much as I ever am) and ready to go. I wrote an ambitious goal of writing 1500 words last night on the goal-board and I was planning on meeting that goal. My plans, alas, were foiled. By a tornado. Or rather a funnel cloud hanging ominously above my house threatening at any moment to dip down to the ground and send my house and my cats to Oz. Luckily none of that happened, I did however have to stop everything I was doing and rush home to save said cats from certain doom should the tornado form on the ground. Let me tell you...getting Pixie into a cat carrier is not pleasant. Needless to say I didn't get any writing done, I was too busy being in panic mode. Plus I didn't want to plug in my laptop in case there was a power surge from the copious amounts of lightning. There wasn't. I did however watch War Games. Matthew Broderick looks sooooo young in that movie.

Foil as bullet point 2 describes it is something that I will be using come mid June. I'm taking a beginners fencing class with Sarah on Sunday afternoon for 5 weeks. It should be a huge amount of fun. I imagine that it will help in my writing as well but mostly I think it'll just be fun and a good workout.

Foils as characters. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately actually. It's good to have characters that are foils of each other, however, it is not good to create a character simply because you want that person to have a foil. If you did that then you'd only end up with pairs of characters and I don't think that makes for interesting characters whatsoever. Katze and Gabriel are foils of each other and I did plan it that way. They went through the same tragedy and came out of it completely different and dealing with life and people completely different. Katze and Shay are foils of each other because Shay is so happy and Katze so...isn't. However Katze and Rafe are not what I'd call foils of each other because they are so similar. They have quite a few of the same characteristics. That being said I also don't think Rafe and Gabriel are foils even though it would make sense given the previous sentence.

I think that strong personalities need someone to balance them both in life and in stories. But I think realistically the balance comes from many different people. Katze's coping mechanisms have a foil in Gabriel but Katze's general demeanor have a foil in Shay. If you put all of your characteristics in one person and then have the exact opposite written into another character it isn't true to life. It also becomes boring and predictable and just pleh. Also you must remember to keep similarities among characters even if they are a foil and most especially if they are not. Katze and Gabe do have some similar traits, if they didn't they wouldn't have any ground to ever come together in any meaningful way.

So foils I've also decided are hard to write correctly if you are trying to make them as such. Meaning if you're writing characters and you suddenly realize how they balance each other and you realize that they are foils of one another I think that's awesome. That comes out of creative instincts and letting your characters think for themselves. If you try too hard to make a foil then it usually ends up as a failure or at the very least it feels forced and trite.

That's all I have to say except FIE on tornado's! FIE!!!

Auto Summarize

...in case you were wondering I have nothing to do at work until 1:00...

I played with auto sumarize in MS word today. Here's what I got from the Blood of Renatus in 500 words :)

The Blood of Renauts in 500 words

You know you've played too much Mario Kart when...

In no particular order...

1. You start searching your car for turtle shells to shoot at the car that just cut you off
2. While at the front of the line at a stoplight you pray the guy in back doesn't have a blue shell
3. While stuck in traffic you wonder if there's a secret route just off the road that will give you a speed boost
4. You look extra closely at that piece of litter to make sure it isn't a shiny, rainbow box
5. The guy in the car next to you looks strikingly like Wario
6. You think that your brakes are the same thing as the B button and will give you a speed boost if you skid the curve
7. You think the guy in the motorcycle next to you must be cheating, only karts are allowed on this 50cc highway
8. You think that if you push on the gas at just the right moment coming out of a stoplight you'll get an extra burst of speed
9. You start judging the weight of the cars next to you wondering if you can push them out of your way.
10. You avoid that discarded banana peel because you know it'll make you spin out

Another day

I realized that I don't like my post from yesterday very much so I thought I'd push it down so that this is the first one people see.

I don't really have much to say today about anything interesting so this will be quite short. I got good news at my job yesterday, I'm switching studies. It's a good thing. :)

So I'd like to remind all you readers out there that there are only a few short days until the poll is over! If you have any requests for which excerpt you'd like to see or how long etc then leave a comment. I was planning on just excerpting (it's a good non-word Sarah!) chapter 1. I can protect it easily with pdf stuff (I practiced!) so it'll be as secure as I can get it.

Sarah and I are going to take a fencing class this summer. We're total geeks and it'll be tons of fun and a good workout. She told me that it'll be good to know for all of my sword fighting scenes. Of course in The Blood of Renatus most of the fights are down and dirty and I told her fencing is pretty high class. I'm sure it'll help though and even if it doesn't it'll be loads of fun.

That's all I have for today friends. Have a nice day!

The Origin of Story Ideas...and Write What You Know

So I wasn't planning on posting right now but the server I'm working on keeps shutting me down and consequently making me want to scream very very loudly. So since I'm unable to do any work I figure now is as good a time as any to do some blogging.

It's been brought to my attention that today's blogging topic should be on story ideas because everyone else is doing it. By everyone I mean Sarah and her friend Matt. Naturally I am required to follow suit. Plus Sarah told me to.

I am sure that everyone has read a book or watched a movie and asked "where do they come up with this stuff!" many times. That phrase can be used in a number of ways, most frequently it comes in one of three ways. Awesomeness, Suckiness and Grossoutness. I assure you that all of my ideas fall under the Awesomeness category...at least I pretend that they do.

I think that the origin of story ideas is quite synonymous with inspiration. So from where does inspiration come? I'm of the belief that regardless of the level of awesome or the level of suck the creator of the piece you are reading/watching has been inspired by something. It could be that dude walking down the street with the really cool sunglasses. Or maybe the horror film guy went to a modern art museum and liked the "sculpture" of the bathroom floor erupting with fleshy grossness. Perhaps someone was smoking pot in their basement and got a "brilliant" idea to write a screenplay about smoking pot. Regardless of the outcome is someone somewhere is being inspired by something profound or innocuous at any given moment.

So since this is my blog and I like to write about myself and my work I'll discuss what inspires me and how I come up with the majority of my own story ideas. While I don't put too much stock into the old idiom of "Write what you know" I do recognize that it some merit. I once wrote a short story about fraternal twins who had different fathers because we studied this event in one of my psychology classes and I thought it was a great idea for a story. I also wrote a short story about a group of teenage girls at a camp (like the one I went to as a teenager) playing a prank on the boys cabin (which I did). I even wrote a triptych of very short stories starting with a little boy buying a puppy, the second was the boy in high school with an adult dog and the third was the boy as a man and his poor puppy was too old to play anymore.

All of the above story ideas came from aspects of my life or information I had learned. "Write what you know" can be taken too literal. I was never a boy with a puppy but I was a little girl with a puppy and I'm obviously not a fraternal twin. However I was inspired by bits and pieces of my life and information I had soaked up and stored away. However most of my story ideas come from very vivid dreams.

I've always been a "dreamer", I dream in color and I dream whole scenes that I am not a part of. My dreams tend to be like watching movies and I'm frequently just an observer. Usually I'll wake up and remember an image or bits of dialogue but sometimes I'll remember an entire sequence of events. The origin of The Blood of Renatus came from a dream. I dreamt of a young woman stealing a bag of coins from a weary traveler. The weary traveler was looking for someone and he caught the thief, recognized her and then chased her through the city until she climbed a roof to get away. I wrote it out the next day, I think it was about 8 pages. It also does not appear anywhere in my book. Oh the weary traveler (Rafe) does get his coins stolen by the thief (Katze) but it's completely different and completely re-imagined.

What inspires you and what starts as the origin of your story does not necessarily end up being any part of the end product. The point, I think, is to be inspired at all. The point is to have a starting place, to see a character or an image and feel like there is a story behind it waiting to be told. And you're the only person who can tell it, it was your inspiration after all. Who else but me would tell Katze's story? And really, if nothing else The Blood of Renatus is Katze's story. Who else but Sarah would come up with her ideas? Who else but you can tell your own stories. Not me, not the person sitting next to you. Everyone has something inside of them, everyone has an imagination it's all about what triggers that imagination.

Also keep in mind that there are good ideas and bad ideas. This goes back to the Awesomeness, Suckiness or Grossoutness factors. However all ideas should be given weight and it's up to you to decide if you want to write it/film it/trash it or whatever. The other night I thought up an idea that I think would snuggle into the middle of Suckiness but I'll probably write at least a few chapters of it (eventually) before I make that decision. It might have some potential, you never know. Because you'll never know I think that the good, bad and gross ideas that a person has should be written down. Even if it's just an image of a girl sitting beneath an apple tree, or humans with wings unable to fly because of pollution, or bathroom tile erupting with the fires of hell-it is still worthy of taking note. You did think the idea after all, it wouldn't be fair to just ignore it.

[edit]I'd just like to note that intelligence should not be denoted on the usage of non-words. Sometimes non-words are quite fun and really should be up for dictionary nomination or however it is that words become official "words". Also I really hate the word "accountable" and I'm very aware that the above post is incredibly disjointed. FIE! [/edit]

The Soundtrack of our Lives

I believe that at any given point in time in our lives we can listen to a song and really relate to it. We, as humans, can listen to poignant lyrics and feel moved and say to ourselves 'hey that's me right now!' It's quite common and I think perfectly normal, if one did not relate on a deep level to a song then I think I'd question either that person's honesty or sanity. So is it not equally logical to superimpose meaningful songs onto fictional characters? I propose that not only is it logical to do so but natural. With the never-ending variety of song choices of every lyrical meaning, of every genre out there it seems like a second nature to me to assign a theme song if you will not only to books I read or movies I watch but also in my own writing.

Before I began The Blood of Renatus I created a playlist basically of motivational music to keep me focused and pumped up through Nanowrimo. I included songs that were soothing as well as angry. I have a section of my playlist devoted to what I dub "battle music". You can almost hear the sword fights in the background of Metallica, Velvet Revolver and Godsmack. I also included songs just because of their title, for instance I have: 1000 Words; Famous Last Words; Things I'll Never Say; Speak; and Paperback Writer. As I wrote more and as I became more in tune with the specific needs and traits of my characters I started to think about what their theme songs would be.

Most of my characters I can assign one or two songs that feel like "them". Perhaps I've simply been inspired by the music that I listen to or perhaps I listen to that music more because I want to get into the mindset of whichever character I'm writing. Because I switch between my characters each chapter I have to really focus on making sure that the Rafe chapters sound like Rafe and that they don't sound like Katze. It's harder than you'd think mostly because Rafe and Katze are quite similar in some ways. To do that I tend to listen to music that I feel fits with that character. I find it so helpful that after a few bars of a single song I can suddenly write all Rafe in all his moody glory.

My character Katze--who I don't think I've really talked about much in this blog--gets an entire playlist all to herself. Why does she get 36 songs and everyone else gets lumped into the general "writing" playlist? Well mostly because she was the first character I created and is probably the most important and most complex character in the whole book. She's full of rage all the time, slightly crazy and kind of mean. There were just so many songs that kept coming to me that just were Katze. I'll give you a selection of my Katze playlist:

• Uninvited-Alanis Morissette
• Losing Grip-Avril Lavigne
• Learn to Live With What You Are-Ben Folds
• Bruised-Ben Folds
• Going Under-Evanescence
• Hollow-Godsmack
• Whatsername-Green Day
• Dead!-My Chemical Romance
• The Sharpest Lives-My Chemical Romance
• Damaged-Plumb
• Stranded-Plumb
• Life's a Bitch-Shooter
• You Got No Right-Velvet Revolver

That's just a few of Katze's songlist, I didn't want to post all 36. I'm pretty sure if she were a real person in modern day she would only ever listen to Emo or angry chick music. I think if you listened to those songs you would probably get a pretty good feel for her psyche without reading a word. For those of you who know Katze's character you can probably understand why I chose some of those songs based only on the title. I'd tell all you innocuous readers out there more about her but that would spoil the fun wouldn't it?

Music's good for the soul and to me one of the points of being a writer is to give soul to the people I've created on paper. At some point, they stop being text on a paper and become people with thoughts and feelings that as far as I'm concerned can easily be expressed in song. Anyway, I'd post my other MC's (main characters) theme song but it's time to go home. Maybe another day. :)