Category Archives: Writing

Blocked

So far, knock on wood, I don’t really have writer’s block. I have writer’s apathy.

With Iron Butterfly, I’ve written two scenes that I know are going to get tossed. They’re not important to the story, they’re not propelling the story at all. Because of that, I’m depressed.

Right now, I don’t want to bother writing anything. Something is  blocking traffic, I know what I need to write, it’s just getting it down.   Once I get past it, everything should flow. I have a couple of stories in mind for my Champions Online fans,  an Iron Butterfly scene, editing for War Mage (book 2), and getting the gumption to go take pictures to sell my car.

I don’t know what is blocking the traffic, but all four of those things are what I need to do, and I have to find which one is in the way.

Hello, Mary Sue…

I’m so proud of myself, writing this great romance story. It’s not original, still following a template, but it’s a great idea.

Then I took the Mary Sue test.

Oh, dear.  The male lead is a definite Mary Sue, but the female one I’m trying really hard (intentionally) to make her not one. In the romances that I’ve read/skimmed (3, okay?) the girl’s a ditz, the guy’s a hero, and when they meet, sparks fly.

I’m following the rules, here!  I’m trying to get into the market, not become a literary giant. I consider my name to be the trashy romance/erotica author. Jake is the gay urban fantasy guy. That’s how i’m going to introduce myself.

Homecoming is on its 3rd edit. I have a feeling I’m going to have to describe EVERYONE in detail, not just the three main characters. However, when I read books, I don’t notice the description there. I’m trying to look to see how people are described, and I don’t even notice it. Are they that good that I’m missing it, or do they not put it in?

I described a lot in this romance. I’m up to 10K words right now. I’m going to keep going with it. It’s a good idea. It’s fun.

So what if it’s a waste of time.

“Sometimes the story isn’t there”

I finally put away the romance novel. I tried sitting down to write it, but it was so boring, that I put it away.

Following a template was a good idea, in theory. The story had written itself. I outlined like I did with NaNo, I started putting together the backstories for each of the characters. I decided to start with my vegetables first–the female lead.

All I knew about Marina was that she was scared. Of everything. Overly cautious. I wanted her to get over her fears during the course of the book. However, according to the template, the hero has to help her get over her fears. I wanted her to grow up on her own.

That’s where I realized I really can’t do this. I can’t believe women eat up this crap.

I’m starting to read books on description. I have an issue with not describing enough. I don’t describe with long passages, but I think I describe with a minimal amount of words. However, looking through book 2 of War Mage, there’s a lot  “in my head” as the Paper Angel Press editor put it. I read it, I can picture it; why don’t others? Do I need to show them everything?

I guess it’s expected.  To be a novel, you have to present a world. I can’t assume that a contemporary world is easily pictured. Especially in Afghanistan, I suppose.

Description is through all the senses. Description can be through a different point of view. Description is often compared to other things. Description is concrete, particular words. Thanks to Wordpainting by Rebecca McClanahan for clarifying that.

I’m also starting to read books with an eye to see how the author uses description. I have a boatload of trashy romance novels to do just that with. I get to see how they do it, or how badly they do it.

I don’t do romance

Writing a romance is hard.

I read a book about writing romance, that basically gave out a boiler template of how to plot your romance. Fill in the blanks and off you go.

I actually used tarot cards to figure out a plot and characters. It came up as a romance. Good, romance is good because that’s a very hot market. Paranormal romance is a really big market too, so yeah, I can see this. And YA romance? It has its own shelf in B&N. I’m in for this.

So the plot is that a girl, who doesn’t know she’s part mermaid, spends a summer in a seaside fishing town, gets in the ocean, changes into a mermaid, is seduced by the mer-prince, refuses for the human that she left on land, and comes back to land to spend the rest of her summer with the landlubber.

Beautiful.

But I can’t get the MC to get beyond a bundle of nerves and fear. She’s acting like Bella. But then, from what i’ve skimmed, most of the YA girls are either feisty bitches or dingbats. Making her feisty would overshadow the hero. Making her a dingbat would just be a Twilight ripoff.

How difficult it is to be original. I was thinking of giving it up but I haven’t gotten any other ideas.

Yet.

Make backups!

Finished Edit 2. Then my Windows computer crashed.  It’s stuck on the Administrator screen, and I’ve tried safe mode, all sorts of fixes I found on the net.

Luckily, Homecoming is on my Mac (which is what I’m typing from right now). The good news is that I saved Blood From A Stone on a flash drive; the bad news is that it’s in .doc format, not Scrivener.

I have a feeling that my computer guy is just going to wipe the drive and start new. I have not realized how boring my life is without my computer. At least I have the Mac and my iPad/iPhone if necessary.

Luckily, I made backups of my novels; however, I redid Brothers of the Zodiac and have lost all that information.  Unfortunately, due to xmas and budgetary constraints, I can’t fix it until after xmas.

I’ll be going to bed a lot earlier.

I had an idea for a story, which I outlined and did beats for. Part of me wants to do it, but part of me doesn’t really care; my heart’s not into it. I need another neat story to get into. Maybe War Mage’s rewrite?

Edit…2

Survived the vacation. Received my batch of second edits to Homecoming. The editor wants more description. In this, I must disagree.

I hate, hate, HATE, text blocks of description. I write like a journalist. I write dialogue, short paragraphs, rapid-fire sentences. I don’t describe in my storytelling because I feel that it drags down the story. Setting, yeah, maybe I need to describe that more, but people? I’m really not good at describing faces in detail, and I’m not good with describing people, either. My strength is the dialogue.

While I was on vacation, I came up with a pretty romance that I might do under my real name. It’s about a mermaid that doesn’t know she’s a mermaid because her father has kept her from the sea all her life. She lives in land-locked Nebraska where there is no salt water. She gets a hankering to go to the ocean and heads east, finds the son of a fishing trawler off the South Carolina coast, and they fall in love, until she falls into the ocean and becomes a mermaid. The mer-people find her and the really handsome mer-prince wants her to stay, but she feels obligated to go back to the sea captain’s son…

It’s written to a formula from a book I read. If I become a paranormal/YA romance writer, I know I can make money off that (romance readers are insatiable!). I went to the Barnes & Noble store in Florida and saw five book cases of Sci/Fi, and six book cases of YA, two with YA/Romance only. Three bookcases of magick, and I couldn’t find the writing books anywhere (Good thing. I don’t need any more of those.)

I want to write Toxicon’s story, too, flesh it out into a better short story and put it out there to introduce the Teen Guardians in a novel or novella. That would be under Jake’s name.

Well, I’m off to see what the second batch of edits is going to be.

PS, finished NaNo before I left, 50,068 words. I’ll clean it up and probably do something with it, because it’s actually pretty good.

When the outline’s too short

I outline, barely, what I need to do when I write.  I just started to outline with these past two novels.  Normally I’m a total pantser, and I write whatever the muse tells me to do.

So I did a very general outline when I first started War Mage.  It was like “Meets dragons”, “Black Lions”, “Meets <Ware>”.  Then I go off and write.

It seems, sometimes, that the characters do their own thing.  Okay, I let them, figuring that’s what rewriting is for.

I’m deep in the middle of the first draft, transcribing it as I’m going along.  Already one entire scene appeared out of nowhere (because I wasn’t utilizing a character enough) into the second draft, and a huge scene that I wrote in one 2-hour stretch disappeared.  I’m not sure if I’ll use that scene or not. Ever.

Today, I listened to a podcast that I won’t listen to anymore because the hostess takes over the entire conversation for blocks of minutes leaving her guests to say, “Oh, that’s nice.”   The hostess, of course, said that nobody makes their characters grow in romance fiction anymore.  And that got me to thinking, did I make Brent grow at all?  Because right now, War Mage reads like a series of vignettes, a bunch of scenes, where he’s reporting on what’s happening but we don’t get what he thinks.  Hell, half of the people he talks to have no names.

Like the scene I wrote last night – it’s total reporting of what happened.  No inner dialogue, no reaction on his part.  And it was supposed to be a powerful scene.

This is what I’m deathly afraid of.  I’ve made a two-dimensional main character.

So once I transcribe the first/second draft, I’ll try to make him grow.

But in the meantime, my outline is getting too short.  What does this mean?

I have to brainstorm.  This is where index cards come in handy.  Because I’m a character-driven writer, I start stories with characters, not plot (sometimes I have a Point A to Point B story, and nothing in between).

I’m going to try this:  I’ll get some index cards and write a backstory, quick and dirty.  Name, age, where they’re from, what branch/division/company they’re in, physical description.  How they interacted with MC.  I should have a nice healthy stack.

Then I’ll pull one out.  Would this character show up again?  If so, how?  What would he do next with Brent?

If nothing comes to mind, I have some writing prompt books and a couple of characterization books to help me through.

Plot will find its way out then.

Oh, by the way, I’m up to 23K words.  I do have a bare bones of a plot, but, like I said, the outline is getting too short and there’s no end in sight.

 

No plot? Big problem

13,000 words into the new novel, and I still have no idea what the plot is.

So far I have introduced:

  • Dragons
  • Marines
  • FOB Blessing
  • Black Lions

I will admit I’m swiping from some books I’m reading in addition to Fighting Season a documentary on Direct TV about the war in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, I think, it takes place after my character is there.

A book I’m reading, Siren’s Song, is about one first lieutenant platoon leader in the Kunar Provence.  It takes place in 2008, but it mentioned FOB Blessing which I was happy to see.  FOB Blessing must have been there for quite some time by the time Siren gets there; it’s relatively new when my MC is there.

-Usually by 5K words, I have a plot.  Or at least a theme.  Here, I got nuthin’ but an outline.

It bothers me.  It bothers me that 13K words are going to be a total waste.

Cold Feet

Book One’s cover is off to the artist, and I can only  hope that he’ll have it done in time.  However, as I’m going through Book One, I’m wondering whether or not it’s actually any good.  It’s honestly not my best work in the world.

Now, Book Two…that cover’s coming out nicely and that story is flowing well (though I have no idea where it’s going).  Should I not even bother with Book One and instead try to put out Book Two?

Why did the dragons join the Americans?  Are they the only dragons?  What can an RPG do to one (we’ll find that out), and what can Brent do?

What about the press?  How come they’re not in there in force?

Some questions for my book journal, I think.

Maybe it’s the honeymoon of Book Two, that since this one’s going so well, it’s going to be better.  It is going to be better.  7000 words into it and I’m liking the outline so far.  But 7000 words of only dragons is not going to carry this – I have to think of something else.

Off to the beta reader

“Homecoming” is finished, and off to the beta reader.

This week I’m paying the artist for the cover, that I hope he can get done in a month.

Next month, I’ll be out of survivor’s benefits, so I won’t be able to do a lot of the things I used to.  Like commission artwork.  The more I go through my budget, the more depressed I get.  I’m not thinking that the book will make money hand over fist – it would be nice, but I don’t think so.

Steven sent me a royalty calculator, and it would be nice if I sold ten books, but I doubt that I would.  I didn’t the last time.  I have to come up with an author page for Amazon.  I have to prepare myself for getting possibly interviewed.

Launch date is October 1.

Man, I’m nervous.