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Archive for January, 2009

Write On

Friday, January 30th, 2009

The vampire short story is finished–more or less–and I think it turned out okay. I had fun with the story, liked the characters, and have been assured by my writing buddy that it’s “totally bitchin’.” :-) That was a huge relief since this is a new length for me and I felt at sea sometimes. The thing that kind of amazes me is that I somehow managed to tell a whole story in 7800 words. I was planning to just do a peek in to their lives sort of thing, which is what others seem to do with this length, but I just wrote without any real plan and had a beginning, middle, and end. I really didn’t expect that, but I’ll take it. And if I can ever come up with a title that isn’t a lame play on words, it’ll all be good.

Now I need to make the transition back into my full-length book and I’m not finding that easy to do. I reread the last chapter I’d written, but I need to sit down and come up with chapter and/or scene goals. I’m hoping that will get my head back into Kel’s story and help me focus.

The test print of Edge of Dawn (which comes out June 30th) has been proofread and the pages that need correction will be mailed back today. I only had time to read through it once and that makes me uneasy–I usually read through them three times–but my mom read through it twice for me and found a few things that I never saw.

It’s pretty nice to have my writing To Do List whittled down to 1 thing. Granted, it’s the biggest item of them all, but having other projects like proofreading and the short story added to my stress because they were kind of hanging there like blades from guillotines. :-) I still have too much to do and not enough time to do it in and I’ve been scarce online lately, but I’ll manage. Somehow.

The Fang Set

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

I’m still working on my vampire story, but I’ll have the first draft done before I go to bed tonight. I started it last Thursday, and my goal was to have it finished by Sunday night, but I trashed everything I wrote before Saturday multiple times and that put me behind where I’d hoped to be.

The experience of writing a short piece has been interesting. There isn’t a lot of room to let everything unfold the way there is in a full book, but I discovered this is a fun length to work with. Of course, I haven’t sent the first draft to my writing buddies yet either, so maybe the entire thing sucks (no pun intended) and then I won’t be thinking it’s that much fun after all. :-)

Because of the length, I did a couple of things. First, my hero and heroine have a past relationship, and though they didn’t stay together, they’re both still in love with each other. That allowed me (I think) to have a believable romance going on in the story. The second thing I did was keep the plot very simple and Seere and Isobel will be able to resolve it more quickly than any of my heroes and heroines get to do in my longer stories. I hardly even tortured them either unless you count the time they’ve spent apart.

I did surprise myself a little, though. I hadn’t planned on doing any world building. Because of how short it is, I thought I’d just go with standard vampire lore, but that isn’t the way it worked. Isobel gave me a ton of information on her people. I doubt that any of it is earth shatteringly different, but it isn’t the standard Hollywood vampire background either. There’s also very little of this in the story–just enough for things to make sense–but I think it adds a richness to what is there because I know so many more facts and details.

The weird thing is that I never wanted to write vampires because I didn’t feel as if I had anything new to say, but after this story, I’ve become really interested in the world and I would like to explore it more. Of course, now vampires have been done to death and I’ve got other story ideas that are more unique I’d like to write, too, so I think it ends here. I’m glad, though, that I agreed to do this and spend time in this world with this h/h.

Don’t Wanna Stop!

Monday, January 26th, 2009

It was a major writing weekend for me. My goal was to finish the first draft of my vampire short story by Sunday evening, but I didn’t make it. I still need to write one more scene and a conclusion, but I did get a lot of work done. Eighteen pages in two days is a lot for me. I just wish I had one more day.

So I don’t have a lot to blog about. I can tell you that oddly enough my vampire romance is being told in both third and first person points of view (POV). Yeah, I know. I hate first person POV, but my heroine is talking that way to me and it didn’t work when I tried to force it into third. My hero is talking in third person and I never even tried to switch his POV to match the heroine’s. I guess I’ll see how my writing buddies react when I send it to them.

I found a picture of my hero quickly and he is hot. :-) Again, my heroine surprised me–she’s a redhead. Do you know how hard it is to find pictures of redheaded women? I went to all the modeling agency sites I had bookmarked, but only a few of them had any models with the right color hair and none of them were my heroine. I then tried to do a Google image search for redhead. Don’t ever do that. ::shudder::

I wrote without her picture, but last night–after my brain shut down for the day–I went looking some more. I found one that’s close enough and we called it good. :-)

Today, the writing went exceptionally well and darn it, I didn’t want to stop. I’d still be writing now except my brain shut down for the night. Again. I hate when that happens.

Working On the Night Shift

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I was talking to one of the guys at work about my vampire short story and he started asking me questions about vampires. You know, like how do you kill a vampire, do they only drink human blood or can they drink animal blood? Things like this. For a moment, I was stymied. While there is a great deal of vampire lore out there, it’s still my story to tell. I finally said to him, “my world, my rules.” :-)

That’s when he suggested that if a vampire could drink animal blood, he could get a job at the slaughterhouse and no one would be the wiser. His best idea IMO, though, was the vampire night shift of airplane mechanics. :-) I asked if they’d be able to wear their capes while they worked on the planes and he said, probably not. OSHA wouldn’t allow it.

This got me thinking of the movie Love at First Bite and wondering if it was possible to do a comedy like that with the vampire airplane mechanic idea. Of course, I don’t write funny so it’s a what-if scenario rather than anything I’m actually going to attempt, but it still kept me entertained for a while.

And speaking of the vampire short story, I started it officially today. I’ve been getting narration for a couple of weeks now–usually in first person–but this week it finally switched to third person which means it’s time to rock. This doesn’t happen all the time–where I get the story in first person and then it switches–but it has happened a couple of times. It rattled me the first time because I’m not a fan of first person POV, but when the story switched to third person before I wrote it, I calmed down. Now I don’t get shaken, I just wait for it to morph into a writable version.

Nearly done with my first read through on galleys. I should finish it tomorrow. I’m still hoping to squeeze in a second run, but might not have time.

Galley Time

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

My galleys arrived yesterday for Edge of Dawn. This is a test copy of the book to make sure there weren’t any mistakes as the story was setup to be printed. It’s the last step I’m involved with before Edge of Dawn becomes a real bound book and it’s my final chance to make any changes before the book goes to press.

I both like and dislike galleys. I like them because I want to catch any errors–either mine or the printer’s–before it goes to press. I’m a perfectionist and nothing makes me crazier than mistakes.

I dislike them because I’m a perfectionist and I want to keep fixing and fixing and that’s not possible at the galley stage. Every change that isn’t a printer error costs money and so I can’t change everything I might want to change. I have to pick which ones are most important to me and live with the rest.

The other problem with galleys is reading them. I get caught up in the story and forget that I’m supposed to be proofreading, not visiting with my hero and heroine. And because I’m so familiar with the story, I’ll mentally see words that are missing or eliminate words that shouldn’t be there. That’s why I enlisted my mom a few books ago to read the page proofs, too. This is the first time she’s seen the story so she’ll notice if things are missing and/or added.

Today, I began reading through the galleys and I’ve already gotten lost a few times in Logan and Shona’s story. I really like these two and they’re both so much easier than the characters in the book I’m writing now. It’s Kel’s book (Logan’s brother–you’ll meet him in Edge of Dawn if you read it) and he’s had a rough stretch in his life and his heroine has as well. Logan and Shona? Well, you know I always torture my characters, but neither one of them has any really heavy baggage and their story was such a nice break for me between Creed’s book (In Twilight’s Shadow) and Kel’s book (still officially untitled) that I’m enjoying rereading it.

Anyway, must get back to galleys. I am hugely busy with a short story and a book both due on March 1st. I need to finish this latest job and get it out the door.

My Vampire Chick

Monday, January 19th, 2009

I mentioned that I was asked to participate in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2 and I think I said that my heroine was talking to me. She imparted a lot of information, most it helpful, but would not tell me her name. I know she’s switched names a lot over the centuries, but the hero knows her real name and he calls her that name. Only I don’t know it.

Squeezing her got me nowhere. In fact, she stopped talking. But it was getting ridiculous, you know? I can’t move forward without a name. To make it even more fun, it needs to be a name that was used back when she was born, and since I don’t write historical and have no intention of ever doing so, I don’t have resources for historical names. I was toying with using Elizabeth. I wasn’t completely certain, but I thought it had been around long enough, but that didn’t feel exactly right.

Close, but not exactly.

Tonight, I made it my mission to figure out what the heck my heroine’s name is. I found a site that has links to all kinds of names from medieval as well as other historical eras and I started clicking. It didn’t take too long before I found Isabella. Hmm. Was Isabella really around back then? I mean, the site I found was for creating characters in a Role Playing Game and I was a little leery, so I visited my favorite name site: Behind the Name.

They listed Isabella as a form of Isabel and when I clicked over to Isabel (which seemed oh, so right for my heroine), I discovered that Isabel is a form of Elizabeth and that it became popular in England in the 13th century. Bingo!

I knew Elizabeth was almost right, but I had no idea why. Now I do. How cool is this?

The Plane Crash

Friday, January 16th, 2009

Wow. Another plane crash with no loss of life. This makes two in less than a month. The first was in Denver when Continental aborted takeoff and veered off the runway. Still no cause on that one. And now today, the US Airways plane landing in the Hudson River. The mayor of NYC called it a miracle and I would agree. There were so many factors that could have gone wrong and didn’t.

During Airport Days one year, retired Captain Al Haynes was brought in to speak and I went out to hear him. I don’t know if y’all remember United 232, but there was a made for TV movie made about the rescue called Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 that wasn’t bad. Anyway, one of the things Captain Haynes said was that the reason so many people survived the crash on his plane was that a lot of things went right for them on the ground. (I found a transcript of a speech he gave and it’s close to what I remember hearing.)

He talked about all the luck they had that day. Like the fact that they were over Iowa, which had a lot of flat ground that they could try to bring the plane down on if they had to and not over the ocean or the Rocky Mountains. They had good weather, without turbulence. That it happened during daylight hours let them have better visibility of the runways and airport. It also happened to be shift change time at the hospitals, so with the advance warning, they had a lot of medical personnel on hand. Sioux City, Iowa also had the regional burn unit and trauma unit for the area and those are the two biggest issues usually in a plane crash. The other plus was that it was the one day of the month that the Air National Guard was at the airport.

I’m thinking that the US Air plane had a similar series of lucky incidents today.

The other thing Captain Haynes said that has stuck with me since I heard him speak was that whenever he flew, he listened to the safety demo that the flight attendants gave. He said he always pulled his card out of the seat pocket and followed along. I started doing that after I heard that. Ecen if you fly a lot, the configurations of the airplanes change. If you fly on a Northwest Airlines 757, we have something like 5 or 6 configurations and what obstacles you’ll have between you and an exit will be different depending on which airplane you get.

I also always locate the two closest exits. If one exit is blocked by fire, I want to know where to go. Since I work for an airline, I know all the thought and attention there is on making our planes safe. If my part as a passenger means paying attention for 3 minutes at the beginning of the flight, I can do that.

Plans

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Monday, on my lunch hour at the necessary Evil Day Job, I took my notepad and started working out scene goals for the next chapter. These were kind of vague, I confess, but then I went through and listed all the things I had to have happen and which chapters I thought I was going to put them in.

This was reassuring because I do have enough story for the book, but it also started me worrying, too. This storyline requires a lot a confrontational/action scenes. Now I’m thinking, okay, how do I balance this book so they don’t seem overwhelming? Am I going to get deeply enough into the emotional issues my characters are dealing with? And what about the romance? If all they’re doing is going from fight to fight, where’s the down time?

I’m still thinking, but my brain is sluggish because I’m getting something. Half the office is sick right now, so it’s not surprising, but the timing is terrible! I’ve been popping vitamin C like crazy and going to bed early this week in an attempt to avoid the crud. I’m not feeling great, but I’m not full-blown sick either, and the longer I can hold it off, the more antibodies my immune system can build. :-) And I’m trying to figure out how some authors manage to write when they’re sick. Any hints? Because I have to tell you that even with this limbo stage before the cold/flu hits, I’m still worthless.

Anyway, that’s why I’m behind on comments and why I didn’t blog last night–all I want to do is sleep. Right now, I have to get moving. It snowed–again–and it’s going to be another ugly commute in to work this morning.

What OCD?

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I’m a teeny bit obsessive/compulsive. Okay, maybe more than a teeny bit. Tonight, I learned where I just might have gotten it from. I mentioned that I’m setting a story in a cabin in southern Wisconsin that my family stayed at a few times and that my parents are looking for pictures for me, so I can get the details right. At least I’m pretty sure I mentioned this. Anyway, my parents didn’t find more pictures, but they did find papers from when they were younger.

Among the items was my dad’s grade school autobiography, a speech he gave in high school, and the notebook where he kept track of every letter he sent and received while he was in the army. He has date received, date written, and the date he replied all neatly tabulated. He had them broken down by name, even people who only wrote once, and he had all the mail cross referenced by date. Seriously!

I was like, OMG, this is so scary! Not just that he wrote a record in a little notebook, but that he’s kept it all these years. My mom said she was glad she didn’t know him then because she was never much of a letter writer.

Then he brought out some more papers. He kept track of every cent he and my mom spent on their honeymoon, right down to the tips. Even twenty cents wasn’t too small an amount to write down. I’m looking at him thinking, no wonder I have a, um, obsessive attention to detail. It’s hereditary! My sole consolation is that at least I never recorded dates letters were written and received or other truly inconsequential things like that.

And you know, now that I think about it, every family trip my dad would record the mileage, the time we stopped, the time we left, how many gallons of gas the car took, and other things that escape my mind. He always had a long log of our trips. Not the interesting information like what we did, but the bookkeeping type of information. Hmm. Must think some more about the role of environment in the forming of personality and behaviors. This could get scary. ;-)

Free Online Workshop

Friday, January 9th, 2009

I’m doing a free online workshop at the Words In Motion Conference (the entire conference is online) tomorrow, Friday, January 9th. My topic is Creating Three-Dimensional Kick-Butt Characters In a Paranormal World, and while it’s geared toward writers, readers are welcome, too. Here’s some more information:

2009 WIM Conference: Sci-Fi, fantasy, and Urban Fantasy Romance, January 9th – 11th

The Lamplighter Conference Center, Main Street Community Forums

Attendance and participation is free.

To attend, you only need to register at the Mainstreet Forums and you will be allowed access. (Registration is required to reduce the amount of spammers to the site.)

For more information on the other presenters and workshop events, visit Words In Motion.


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