2015 Resolutions

I am the actual worst at updating this blog that perhaps my actual resolution should be to actually remember that I have a blog and to post on it occasionally. Yeah. But, no. That's not what it is. But I am getting ahead of myself. Welcome back to the WriYe Blogging Circle posts. This is January 2015's post.

What is your one main goal for this year? Call it your writing resolution. Not two. Not five. Your main and only one. And why is it your goal?

Well. This took me a long time to thing of because there's a lot that I need to work on. From not overdoing description to the opposite -- making sure I describe things enough, instead of summarizing them. To showing more or cutting dialogue tags or working on the overuse of characters' names... There's a lot of things I need to work on fixing. 

And then there's the little things regarding my craft like writing with any semblance of regularity, or focusing on one / two things at a time so maybe (eventually) something will get finished, to keeping all of my work in one spot and then backing it up elsewhere... But no. That's not what my writing resolution is for 2015.

My 2015 Resolution is Finish Sky of Light once and for all. Editing, publishing / self-publishing, whatever. 

I am ready to wipe my hands clean of that novel for once and for all. I've been working on it in one form or another since 2007 and I am definitely ready to be done with it. There's still the prequel and the sequel to write / finish, but at least it's not this chunk of the story.

So that's my main goal. Blow through the rest of this edit and be done with it for good.

JulNoWriMo 2014: Zombies Get their Unhappy Endings

Zombies! 

Most people know that I'm a realistic fiction writer most of the year. I'd rather have a box of chocolates and bouquet of roses for weapons than a sword and shield most of the time, despite the lack of real defensive properties of flowers and candies. There is one time every year that I hang my proverbial genre-niche hat and break out into another genre. I don't mind that the genre I write in is a very tiny subgenre. It's something different and that's all that matters. And that genre? Supernatural Horror. Because I write about Zombies.

As is very consistent with my normal writing, I am terrible at finishing things that I start. My zombie novels are no exception to this pattern. Of the three zombie novels (and one short story) that I've started, I have finished one of those things. The short story. This year, my goal is to finish at least two of those currently-in progress novels. And those are the two I want to ramble about for a few minutes here. 

Boarded-In: The Hell Academy Boarding School was never quite as it seemed: rules were broken constantly, people were worse behaved there than they ever were in public school, and not everyone came from the background they appeared to. But when eating flesh becomes the new fad in school, Rachel, Jake, and Carol realize they are really in for far more than they originally had bargained for.

Carney-Vores: Bucca Park is one of the nation’s biggest collections of rollercoasters and Mallory Skyy cannot keep herself away any longer. Despite a shocking ride-related fatality only a few weeks before her Spring Break trip to the park and many hushed secrets about the place, she drags her boyfriend to the park anyway. There’s more thrills than the attractions as they battle through this Zombie Park.

So, those are the two stories that I'm focusing on this Zombie July over on JulNoWriMo. Alongside my Camp NaNo novel SKY OF STARS, which is a traditional romance / chick lit within my normal series. Why these two novels? Well, the easiest reason / explanation is because they are the two oldest, so they should be the ones to be finished first, I think. But also, they're the two that are the most planned out and I have a pretty well-established plot for both of them. And then there's the cheating reason... That those two are both already over 10k, whereas my third unfinished zombie novel is sitting, currently, at a whopping 800 words. (It was a very sad realization that of the 9k I had written last summer in Zomb-Chicka-Bow-Wow, most had been lost.) Yeah. I don't know what else to include in this post. But Zombies! They will be had. :D

Character Relationships: First Meetings

Give us the story of how your favorite written characters got together and what makes their relationship strongest.

My favorite characters... It's really difficult for me to decide who to be writing about in this post. At first, my gut instinct was to write about Nick and Audrey because they really are my favorites. However, their story about how they met is really uninteresting. Audrey moved over to the US and was introduced to Jimi by her boss and then, at the same time, she met Nick. There's a little more to it then that, and they definitely have a lot of bangs, bumps, and bruises along the way, but their initially meeting was definitely nothing to write home about.

So, digging a little deeper, I figured I would tell the story of how Lindsey and Aaron met because it makes me giggle a little bit. And there's no better way to do that than by sharing the scene in which it happened. So long as you promise to keep in mind that this is writing from 2009 and mostly unedited, feel free to read and be amused by a silly little romance.

Lindsey was sitting on the porch swing watching the sun go down over the few acres of the fifty her family owned that she could actually see and dangling her thin white sandal on her big toe. The shoe that belonged on her left foot had long since fallen to the ground and was being ignored as she floated lazily above it. The phone in the kitchen began to ring. It was a piercing sound in the thick, moist pre-dusk air. Lindsey let her other shoe drop to the ground before she stood up. She walked across the porch, feeling the soft worn wood below her feet, still holding in excess warmth from the brutal afternoon sun. She pulled open the screen door that covered the back door and reached her hand in, feeling around on the wall for the phone. She knew it was hanging just inside somewhere. Finally her fingers brushed across the familiar plastic of the receiver.

             “Hello?” she said.

             “Hey sweetie! It’s Mom,” the voice on the other end said. Lindsey smiled and took a few steps so she was inside the house completely.

             “How’s Florida?” she asked, hopping up on the kitchen counter to talk on the phone. She knew the call would be long, since it was her mother and they hadn’t talked in a few days. Lindsey was secretly hoping that she was calling to spill some great and offensive secret about Tiffany that no one had known until it was unearthed on the trip.

             “Hot. If you think it’s hot at home, you should come here! I feel like I should be swimming through the air there’s so much moisture in it. I just wanted to call and see how things were going,” she said.

             “As good as they can be with everything considered,” she said. That was it. No news about the secret transvestite life her sister had been living, or the fact that Kyle was really Kristy, or even that they were going to be a few days late getting home. Just checking up on her, but probably more on the house and animals, since they knew Lindsey could hold her own.

             “Good to hear. Have you thought any more about what you want for your birthday?” she asked. Lindsey smiled, glad to have the attention focused purely on her again.

             “A boyfriend,” she started, “a good looking one about my age—more than a year difference would be weird—with blonde hair and blue eyes,” she said.

             “I’ll work on that one,” she said, laughing. “Actually, there’s a good looking blonde boy right over there, I can’t guarantee the blue eyes right now though. I’ll go find out.”

             “No! Mom, no don’t! I was kidding! It was a joke! Don’t talk to him!” Lindsey said. There was no stopping her mother now that she had already started on her little adventure.

             “Hi there, sorry to interrupt you, I just have a few questions to ask you, if that’s okay,” she said. Lindsey held her face in her hands; she was blushing even though she wasn’t there to actually witness the event. Over the telephone might have actually been worse. “Do you have a girlfriend? Now, before you get weirded out, I’m not asking for myself, but for my daughter. She’s about to turn eighteen, and well, the only thing she asked for was a boyfriend. You just so happen to fit her requirements,” her mother said.

             “Mom, stop please. This is embarrassing!” Lindsey said. She could hear the guy laughing in the background, but it didn’t sound like he was laughing at her, but rather that he was actually entertaining the idea.

             “I’m single, actually. Where’s the daughter? Can I at least meet her before you put a bow on my head and call me purchased?” he said. Lindsey’s mouth fell open; she could not believe that this might actually work.

             “She’s back home in Mississippi, but she’s on the phone right now. If you want to talk to her, that’s okay. I have a few photos too,” her mother said.

             “Mom, no! Stop, don’t give him the phone. Do. Not. Give. Him. The—”

             “Hello?” he said. He voice was low and manly.

             “Uh, hi. I’m really sorry about my Mom. She sometimes takes jokes a little too far, and yeah. Sorry,” she said.

             “If you’re as cute as your voice, I don’t mind. Even if you aren’t, I could handle that,” he said.

             “I, uh...” Lindsey stuttered. She had nothing to say.

             “You have a name, pretty lady?” he asked. “Can I keep this even if I don’t date her—you’ve got a gorgeous daughter,” he said, presumably to her mother.

             “Lindsey,” she mumbled.

             “Lindsey,” he repeated, “I’m Aaron and I’m from California originally, but I’m moving around the States right now looking for a place that I fit in,” he said, “hopefully it’ll be in Mississippi.” Lindsey heard her mother inviting him to her birthday party at the end of the week.

             “Birthday party. Sounds like as good a time to meet you in person as any,” he said, “especially since it sounds like I’m the gift you’re most looking forward to,” he said. Lindsey stayed silent, not sure what to say to the boy her mother had just picked up for her. “You still there, Lindsey?” he asked.

             “Yes. I’m still here,” she said. Her southern accent was starting to show more than it normally did now that she was so nervous. “I just don’t have much to say right now,” she said.

             “Tell me about yourself,” he suggested.

             “Why don’t we wait and save that for the party, that way we know we’ll have something to talk about when you get here and we won’t just be staring at each other uncomfortably while the entirety of my family watches us interact,” she said.

             “Good idea. I’ll see you soon, Lindsey,” he said.

             “Good bye, Aaron,” she said, more embarrassed than ever about what had just happened. Aaron handed the phone back to her mother and Lindsey heard them exchanging important information before ultimately deciding that they would just talk more after Lindsey got off the phone.

             “Well, you can’t say I never get you what you ask for,” her mother said.

Apologies for the slightly wonky formatting and not the best writing, but I think that's an amusing first meeting story.

Written for the WriYe Blogging Circle February 2014 Post.

Developing Character Relationships

Character Relationships

How hard is it for you to create character relationships? Do you pre-plan them, or do you end up letting them develop as the novel goes on?

For me, "writing character relationships" is basically synonymous with "writing a novel." My novels are 98% character-based and, since romance is my home genre, a lot of the information, plot, and storytelling is done through their relationships -- or the lack thereof, depending. That's not saying that I can't write a novel that's not centered around a relationship (because I'd like to think that I can), but in regards to my series that I'm typically writing in? A lot of times, just the pairing of the main character and whomever it is that they will be dating is all I know about a book when I think it up.

Writing character relationships comes pretty easily to me at this point. That probably goes / went without saying after the previous paragraph. But, that's also a very misleading statement. In fact, I almost want to say that it's a borderline lie.

Maybe the relationship is easy at a surface level, but then when you get down to writing the dirty details, it's not so easy any more, especially when writing a huge series. No two relationships in real life are the same, so fictional relationships should follow the same vein, right? Well, theoretically, yes. They should. But that's where it starts to get hard. There's only so many different ways to write a first date. Eventually, things start to get repetitive (at least in your own head) and it's almost a crippling fear of mine that they're also going to come across that way to my readers. I don't want to bore someone and I don't want to write the same book seventeen times. I think (fingers crossed) that I'm not and that the differences that are there are strong enough that I'm avoiding that sort of thing for the most part, but everyone has their insecurities; that's one of mine.

Also, as a planner, I do typically pre-plan out most of my major fictional relationships. It's a control thing. I like to know what's going to be happening in my own novels to avoid the winding rambling chapters of death that I would otherwise be left with. But, that's not to say that things always work out as I'd intended. And sometimes the way they develop within the novel themselves is to blame for plots changing and novels (in the form of prequels and sequels... And sometimes entirely new spin offs...) being born. Yeah, that's happened to this particular series more than once already. Awesome, right?

My favorite example is Erika and Colin (RIP Erika and Mike). They are a part of the Mississippi region of the series and I thought it would just be the cutest thing for Lindsey and her best friend (Erika) to end up happily with another pairing of best friends. As a modern-day Southern Belle, I just thought that would be an adorably appropriate ending for Linds. Unfortunately, Erika had other plans. See, she and Mike? They don't really work together. I should have known that putting two opinionated, hard-headed, sarcastic, world-hating assholes together wouldn't work out for very long from my own real life experiences. But I guess I thought that if I were the one in charge that I could change that and make it work. And I probably could've forced it, to be entirely honest. But then... Then I created Colin. He was meant to be a background character in SLS. Nothing more than a passing name of a character who happened to work alongside Erika in the coffee shop downtown. I wrote a prompt featuring the two of them for Runaway Tales (back when I was still posting there) and people liked it. I had a few more ideas for their arc, so I penciled those into my plans and intended for that to be the end of things with Colin. Now he had back story and a little bit of depth so that if he ever got a speaking part in SLS, he wouldn't just be a flimsy piece of cardboard. 

Except then he kind of stole my heart. And Erika's, much to her own disappointment. And Mike's (except... Well, never mind. That's delving too much into my plot if I keep going down the road that was starting to traverse). 

Anyway, long story short, Erika and Mike? They're not forever and I'll have to think of another way to incorporate that adorable best friends duo love story idea into the series, if I want to use it still. But Colin? Colin and his smarmy personality are here to stay because of the amusing and interesting way that his relationship with Erika developed during writing.

Alas. That's enough about relationships today. I'll continue this topic next week! 

This was written for the WriYe Blogging Circle post for February.

Planning Strategies in Editing.

Maybe I'm weird, but I've always liked the editing stage of writing the best. For me, the hard work is in the writing and it bogs me down. I love to plan out stories and share my ideas. I want everyone to read what I have to say because I really do believe in my series and I feel like it's innovative in the genre and that the characters are likable and all of that. But writing? Takes too long and takes a lot of commitment.

Maybe I just have trouble with commitment? That's something to take up somewhere else.

But editing? That's the good part of this craft. That's the step where I get to take all of the work that's gone into my novel and enjoy it... And then tear it apart. I get to analyze things like punctuation usage and repetition of words and sentence structure. But that's just part of it. That's the "boring" grammar stuff that you do on the first pass through. That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the really fun part of editing.

Themes and motifs and foreshadowing and symbols and metaphors... All of that fun stuff. Plus the nitty-gritty details of character growth throughout their arc and consistency of their actions and all of the intricacies that those details include.

And that is where my planning techniques as editing techniques come in handy. I've recently fallen in love with making revision outlines. Where I go back through each chapter of an already completed novel and map out all of the plot points, taking note of characters coming in and out of the scenes, locations that are visited, themes and motifs that pop up in each chapter as well as any instances of foreshadowing. It lets me see what's being focused on and what I need to make stronger.

I also like charts. And calendars, which I guess are sort of charts in their own rights? So I made these things that I am actually really, really proud of:

 So, first there is this one. With notes on colors and how they morph throughout each book, as well as the series as a whole. There's notes on other symbols that appear and then in the orange at the bottom are three main motifs that are in each of the three Sky of... novels -- including ones that tie together across the trilogy. On the back there are more specifics that break things down by character, but that was too specific to share online, I thought. Plus, it takes all of the mystery away.  [;

And then there's this one. Ignore the scribbles on the calendar; it's still in draft mode. I was trying to figure out timing for some chapters, as well as the space in between said chapters and some things had to be moved around to make things right.

Pacing is part of that editing fun part.

Yeah. I'm pretty excited about everything I've done for this novel so far, even when it leads to entire chapters being trashed and rewritten from scratch. All of the work that goes into it is only making it stronger than it used to be.

What are your thoughts on editing? Do you have pages and pages of strange documents that won't make sense to anyone other than you?