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.

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: Why I love it.

Planning. I seem to be on a kick about it lately. Yesterday I mentioned that I use typical planning strategies for my editing and now I want to talk about how much I adore it, and why. 

I used to be a pantser, back when I first started writing. My first ever completed novel was a BSB self-insert fanfic about myself, my best friend [then and now... Impressive, right?], and obviously the Backstreet Boys. The whole premise was that we had somehow through the local radio station won a week-long stay in "The BSB House." Just us, two 13-year-old girls... And the guys. That's it. No media for some reality thing; no parents because we we minors. Nothing. Not to mention, "The BSB House?" That's a thing only a slash fangirl would dream up [or one in the making, like I was at that point in my life] because those poor boys spent enough time together on tour and recording that they definitely didn't need to live together too.

And I mean, let's ignore the fact that a radio station, no matter how good the band's rapport was with their "hometown hit station," would never give that prize away under any circumstances... And especially not to a minor.

Suspension of disbelief [or lack thereof] aside, that was my first novel. I came up with the idea on the fly one afternoon on my bus ride home from 7th grade, got home and pulled out the hand-me-down, Windows 3.1 running laptop [it didn't even have a color monitor, guys. it was 50 shades of green for me. #oldschool], and started writing. 

I went through it day-by-day and ran through every potential interaction that could have happened between me and my Backstreet-beaus [yes, plural.] or my BFF and the fictional love of her life. I didn't discuss it with Jessica until it was written and she had read it. I wanted it to be a surprise. I didn't even like thinking about the story until I was home and able to write it, back when I was a decent student and didn't write novels in the margins of my "notes." I wanted it to be a surprise to me, too. 

By the end, it was a 450k rambling monstrosity that was unfortunately lost in a computer death, and it's definitely for the best. I don't know if that novel ever could've been saved from the massive plot holes and terrible roundabout writing that resulted from not having any idea what was going on.

Eventually, I started looking at writing like an academic endeavor and outlined novels as if I was writing a three point essay. And then, things started coming together, but God was writing boring as sin. It was definitely beneficial for my writing, but I hated the actual act of doing it, so it was rather counterproductive.

However, I have since found a nice balance and it brings me a lot of peace knowing that my stories both start and end where I want them to, hitting key points along the way. There's still a lot of wiggle room for the plot to go in whatever way it develops naturally, because that was something missing from the academic approach, but there's guidance and direction and things just end up in a nice, neat little package and I love it. A lot. 

This entry is for the WriYe Blogging Circle topic "Planning" for January 2014. 

The Ever-Looming Deadline

Well. This topic is rather appropriate to this month, with Last WriYe'er Standing in full swing [in which I am a participant, as every year], JulNo creeping up way too fast for my liking, and WriYe 2013 literally halfway done. For me, the summer is like a collection of never ending deadlines. 

But, rather than letting them paralyze me with fear, I embrace them. I am one of those weird people that works better the closer I am to needing to be finished. It's the reason I have my days off from work split up so there is one during the week and one on a weekend: if they were together, the entire first day I would be laying around doing literally nothing because I knew I had all that time the following day to get everything done. Which isn't fun. This way, I have chore and errands split up so I'm never truly overwhelmed on a single day off, which leaves a bit of wiggle room for unplanned things and spontaneity. 

Looking back on my previous post, I'm going to reiterate something I talked about there in this post: LISTS. Make them, cross things off of them... Cherish them like they are your first born child. I mean, what? 

The feeling of accomplishment when you're able to cross off an entire day's list is like none other. Even if you include the simple, daily activities, like showering and cooking dinner, the accomplishment when you cross off all of those things for the day is still a great feeling, and a good source of motivation. Of course, it's not going to feel as awesome that you showered for the third time that week as it would after adding the final touches on your novel and get to cross that goal off, but hey! Who's counting?

As for meeting and missing, well, just keep at it. Sometimes you're not going to be able to accomplish everything you set out to in a single 24-hour period. Sometimes, you decide to sleep in for a day, instead of getting up at 8a on your day off to start tackling the list. There's family emergencies, things taking longer than expected, and just wanting to kick back and FaceTime with a friend instead of being productive. We've all been there. Just carry the task over to the following day's list and get it done then. It's simple. 

Don't be too discouraged by the things you didn't finish. Instead, celebrate those that you did. Be proud of yourself for taking a day to pay attention to you. Enjoy laying in bed doing absolutely nothing for an extra hour some morning. Just... Don't let those Plants vs. Zombies marathons take over your entire life, or else you're ever going to get anything done. 

Inspiration... What is it Good For?

Huh! Absolutely nothing! 

Okay, no, I don't really feel that way about inspiration, but you know... That little ditty about war can really be applied to any noun, so it's a bit fun to do so, I think. Anyway, totally not the point I want to make with this post.

Inspiration. It is both the favorite thing and the bane of every writer's existence. Or so the internet would lead you to believe. I'm finding this to be less and less true as my time spent on writing forums across the web grows more. Of course, there are still your hardheaded writers that absolutely refuse to sit down and put a single word into their document if they are not 100% in the mood to do it, struck by the lightning of the gods, and all about their book and nothing but their book. They have their foil, the people that sit down at 5:45a every morning and write 1k. No. Matter. What.

I'd like to think I'm somewhere in between the "divine inspiration" writers and the "come Hell or high water" ones, but in all honesty? I think that's a lie. And most people who know me know that. If you've spent much time talking to me, especially on my days off from the day job, I think it's pretty easy to figure out which one of those two I am, honestly...

One of my favorite things to do is write lists. I know, I'm weird; you don't have to tell me. Every night before bed, I'll go through the list of things that I have left to get done "in the future," add them to the ongoing to-do list I have on Remember the Milk, and assign due dates and priorities and all of that stuff. When I get on the computer the next day, along with the normal sites [email, Twitter, Facebook, WriYe, etc.], I open up RtM and look at all of my tasks. I accomplish what I can in a day, and then I move on. I have a reoccurring daily task of "Write 2k" and I like seeing that get checked off every single day. Because I like lists and I like crossing things off said lists.

The feeling of accomplishment I get when I see there's nothing marked overdue or still needing to be done for today? That's my source of inspiration. Weird, right?

I don't have a muse -- to the aggravation of a fair few of my writerly friends -- and I don't have to be "in the mood" to write, whatever that means. I have to know that I need to get something done, and then... Well, I do it. Simple as that.

Writer's Block [WriYe Blogging Circle]

Writer's Block. It's a phrase that's pretty much the worst swear word of the writing world. The He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Everyone's worst nightmare, etc.  I could probably ramble on like that for at least another 6-8 names. But I won't; I'll save you that misery. But, then again... This post is going to be a pretty short one otherwise...

Writer's Block is not something that I'm terribly familiar with. Not to say I don't ever hit walls or get stuck with my plot or tired of writing... Because I do. With all of that. Usually at least once a week. Sometimes more like once a day, or even once an hour. And it sucks. A lot.


Here's the thing though. I don't let it stop me. If I get stuck on a plot, I pull up another document and just start rambling about what could happen if one character did this. And go from there. Not working out? Fine. Change characters. Change their reaction. Make them act totally out of character for a minute, just to keep writing and keep my head focused on the problem at hand. If that doesn't work, I close the file and walk away from that project for a while. When I come back in an hour, I'll have fresh eyes and new ideas [hopefully]. If I still can't get around that wall... I either switch projects [normal] or skip that part [very rare and I don't recommend that, personally] and just keep going.

When I just don't feel like writing for the day, I won't lie. Most of the time, I won't do it. I hate the way my work sounds when I wasn't feeling like doing it, but sometimes you have to. And then I just sit down and power through. It might need more editing than stuff would otherwise and it's most likely going to take me an hour to write 150 words, but it's done. And I didn't break my habit because I was feeling a bit lazy that day.

So, writer's block. A big scary thing that, like all other nightmares, I stare at dead in the eyes and say: You don't scare me!