And So It Begins

After almost four months of blood, sweat, and tears with the HTRYN class, the real work has finally begun: the actual, hands-on revision. (Cue butterflies in the stomach. Big ones.) I almost had a panic attack before starting, but eventually I calmed down and got a grip. The first scene was technically a new scene—it was one I lost in the computer mishap—so I had to re-write it, as well as the second scene. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, though.

I’m not trying to get too ambitious, but I’d like to have this revision pass done in four weeks. Not entirely unreasonable, considering there’s about 125 scenes. Some of them (a few), will only require minor work, but there are a lot of new scenes to be written—including the chunk at the end that I lost.

Judging from the marked-up pages I’ve already been through, I don’t think I’m going to have any “perfect” pages (ones that don’t need any changes). Stressful and intimidating, but at least it has begun.

Found: My New Favorite Author

That would be Maggie Stiefvater, by the way. Her two books, Lament and Shiver were part of my recent Amazon binge. And wow, am I glad I binged! (Trust me, that’s probably the only time you’ll ever hear THAT phrase come out of my mouth.) I read these two books this week, and loved, loved, loved them both! They were completely awesome, but if you’re looking for light, frivolous fiction, you won’t find that here. These books are darker, edger, and completely addictive (Sort of like good dark chocolate. Mmmm.)

I read Lament, the first of the Books of Faerie, first.

From Maggie’s website:

Deirdre, a gifted musician, finds herself infatuated with Luke, a mysterious boy who enters her life, at the same time she discovers she’s a Cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Trouble is, Luke is a faerie assassin—and Deirdre is meant to be his next mark.

So, I was completely entranced from the opening scene, when Deirdre is on her way to a musical competition, and she’s so nervous she has to immediately run to the bathroom to throw up (As usual), except that this time, Luke, the boy from her dreams, is there to help her (Not so usual.) Completely, utterly entranced. I loved the characters in this book. Even the minor ones are well-done and vivid, and I found myself actively disliking Deidre’s mom. As for her aunt, well, “dislike” isn’t quite a strong enough word. I read this in less than a day, desperate to find out what happened to Deidre and Luke, and how it was all going to go down. And, hello, evil faeries are pretty dang cool, too! (Although I have to admit, I prefer my faeries a little more…nice, I suppose. Like the Disney version, but not Tinkerbell. More like Legolas in LOTR. Okay, now I’m really digressing. Back on-subject.) Great book. When I finished it, I immediately went through my TBR pile hoping that I’d gotten the second book in the series, Ballad, so I could find out what happened next. Alas, I had not.

However, I had bought Shiver, which turned out to be a completely new take on werewolves–and not one I was sure I was going to like at first. Turns out I did. A lot. This is the first in the Wolves of Mercy Falls books. (The second one, Linger, comes out in July, the third, Forever, comes out in July of 2011.)

From Maggie’s site:

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl.

Grace and Sam are wonderful characters. This book is dark–at least I thought so–full of a sense of futility and inevitability that had me almost in tears a lot of the time. Grace is something of an outsider, obsessed with the wolves, which no one understands. Sam is different than the other wolves. He’s wolf, but he wants so badly to be human and have a human life. The story is told from both their viewpoints, and I have to admit, I’m HORRIBLE at paying attention to chapter headings, so this was occasionally confusing to me as I had to stop and check who I was with a few times. I loved this book. At first, I was a little unsure, but I got so into it and the cold that haunts its pages that it was almost a shock when I finished reading it and went outside into the 70 degree spring weather. If Linger was out now, I’d be happily reading it right this second. Sadly, it isn’t. But as soon as it is…It’s mine.

Nothing To See Here; Move Along

I don’t have any startling revelations to report this week, sadly. The writing is going well. The revisions on Tempest are still going, although this week is kind of a slog through murky waters dealing with setting details. I’m getting the final things in order to begin the actual revision pass through the werewolf story, which starts next week. I’m a little nervous about that. I hope I can actually get the vision I have for this story, the vision that’s grown stronger with this class, down on paper and do it justice.

Let’s see, what else has been going on? I went to the Fairgrounds racetrack on Saturday to see 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra race. There were an estimated 12,000 people there, and it was a beautiful spring day, if a little bit windy. Sadly, Rachel got beaten, although it was a good race, and fun to watch. It was an interesting experience. I’ve never seen people holding up signs at a horse race before, and the track is always a good place to go for people watching. People will wear anything out there, and it cracks me up. Seriously, would you wear 4-inch stilettos if you knew you were going to be tramping around on concrete for 5 hours? Not me. I’d trip and break my neck. But it proved quite entertaining.

And…that’s pretty much it for me for now. I’ve two crits to work on for my crit group, along with various other odds and ends to keep me on-track for my goals for the year. Other than that, it’s all good.

Eureka!

Have you ever had one of those “AHA!” moments where something just clicks in your writing and everything just falls into place? I had one of those moments Sunday when I read the new HTRYN lesson. It was about time: flashbacks, flashforwards, etc. One of the exercises is to pick a scene and move it to the beginning and make it your opening scene.

I knew immediately which scene would work best as an opening, would create the most impact and conflict right off the bat. I felt like I’d been struck by lightening! I will definitely be moving this scene and opening the story with it, then I’ll go into more detail when I get to its proper place. I think opening with it will immediately draw the reader in and keep them hooked until they find out what’s going on.

So far, this lesson has clicked with me, and it definitely makes the top five best lessons I’ve learned from HTRYN. I think the class may be open again for enrollment, so if revision is something you struggle with, you should definitely check it out.

Chemistry and Angels

Okay, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. A lot of YA reading. And two books have really made a big impression on me in the last week: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, and Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles.

Hush, Hush is an urban fantasy about fallen angels and the ancient battle between good and evil, and everything in between. I enjoyed this book a lot. It had a fast pace, and it kept me guessing–although maybe a little bit too much. I read it almost straight through, trying to figure out what was going on, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nora Grey, the female MC is an interesting character and I really liked getting to see things through her eyes. Puck, the male MC was intriguing and sexy with a nice hint of danger. Good read, and I recommend it.

Perfect Chemistry has one thing in common with Hush, Hush: the female MC gets assigned a new lab partner in science class and the first assignment is to find out everything they can about their new partner.(Kind of weird that I should run across this twice in back-to-back books.) And that’s pretty much where the similarities end. I LOVED this book! I was up ’til 1 a.m. finishing it, desperate to find out what happened! It’s a re-telling of West Side Story, with Brittany Ellis, a blond, upper class cheerleader and Alex Fuentes, a Latino gang member. Brittany wants everyone to believe her life is perfect–perfect grades, perfect family, perfect boyfriend–and appearance is everything to her. Alex just wants to survive and take care of his family. They come from opposite sides of the tracks, and their two groups don’t mix. It just isn’t done. When the two of them interact, the sparks literally fly off the page! I can’t recommend this book highly enough! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me want to shake some sense into the characters, but it was a great read. I can’t wait for the sequel, which is about Alex’s little brother. It comes out next month.

And that’s all for now.

Spinning My Wheels

Do you ever feel like you’re at a constant, frenetic pace, but you’re not actually going anywhere? Well, that’s the way my life’s been going this week. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels like this!) Busy, busy. I’ve gotten a bit of writing done, but I haven’t hit my goals consistently (or even written a single word today). However, I’m making huge progress–at least I feel like it–in my revisions.

I broke down the angel story into plot and subplots, and wrote The Sentence for the whole book AND the individual threads. Wow. That was quite an eye-opening experience. I discovered that my plot has less scenes (by a nice margin, too) than one of my subplots, so that’s going to require some changes, whether or not I switch the subplot to be the main plot or not. And I can see there are some other scenes that I need to write, although I’m not quite sure what they are yet.

In the werewolf story, I’m currently dealing with time. I had to sit down and figure out when each scene took place (Day one, day three, etc.). Which would have been MUCH easier if I’d kept the scratch calendar I made when I was outlining the second half of the story, complete with the scenes penciled in on their respective dates. (NOTE TO SELF: Do not throw any story notes away. AT ALL. No matter how trivial they seem at the time.) I’ve figured out that my scenes are heavily skewed towards the beginning and ending time-wise, of my story (which stretches over a 3-month period), so I’ll be looking at changing that a little bit as well.

Other than that, one of my brothers got to town yesterday, and the other will be here tomorrow, so this weekend is family time!

Faeries and Werecats

So, I’ve actually gotten some reading done this week! Yay!

I had to read Shift, by Rachel Vincent, as soon as I had it in my hot little hands. All of it. That day. Another dose of non-stop action, romantic angst, and cool shapeshifters. I was a little anxious going into this book, considering what happened in the last book, but… Can I say that the thunderbirds are way cool? I’d love to see more of them. The baby thunderbirds made me laugh, bursting into feather at the slightest provocation.

The war between the prides is on the verge of blatant hostilities (a.k.a. all-out battle) when the mythical thunderbirds attack, and all sorts of havoc ensues. Like it’s not bad enough that Faythe is the first female enforcer AND heir to the pride, now she has to worry about who set the thunderbirds to attack her pride, not to mention how she’s going to stop them. And then there’s her other little problem: Marc or Jace? Jace or Marc? (Gee, we should ALL have such problems!) The last and final book in the Shifters series, Alpha, will be out October 1st.

I also read The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa. YA fantasy about the fey? I was all over that! Meghan Chase is a 15-year-old misfit with only one friend, Robbie. On her sixteenth birthday, her younger brother is kidnapped, and she discovers she’s really a half-faery princess and she has to venture into the Nevernever (Great name, isn’t it?), and risk herself and everything she holds dear, to rescue her brother, and the rest of Faery, from a deadly new evil. With the help of Robbie, who turns out to be her guardian, the faery prince Ash, and Grimalkin the cait sithe, she sets off on her journey, into the land of dreams–and nightmares.

This was a pretty good read. I enjoyed it a lot, and I’ll be picking up the next book in the series–The Iron Daughter–just as soon as it comes out.

Swamped

And not in a good way, either. I had a busy weekend, and I’m still struggling to get caught up. My to-do list is staring at me threateningly. My brain (or possibly my Muse) woke me up WAY early yesterday and today with a list of things I needed to be working on. And I have a lingering sense of guilt. All this means I haven’t been getting done what I need to get done.

The only thing going really well–and that I’m not behind on–is the writing. The “new” story is flying along pretty well, and I’m about 22k in, so it’s over a quarter of the way finished. This draft, anyway. Other than that…I’m behind.

Off to get some work done. I hope everyone else is being much more productive than I am lately.

A Game of Thrones

I finally finished reading A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin. If I had to sum it up in one word, that word would be “Wow.” It took me several weeks to read it. Not because it’s a BFF (big, fat, fantasy), which I love. And not because I didn’t enjoy it, either. No, it took me so long to read because I just didn’t have time to read! So far, that’s the only book I’ve read this month. Shocking, I know, but I’m hoping to remedy it soon.

This book has been on my TBR pile for a while (a LONG while, sadly), and I just hadn’t had time. But when Holly Lisle assigned it in the HTRYN class, I knew I had to make time. I’m glad I did. I’ve seen this book mentioned in several places as an example of how to do wonderful things with characters. I’ll be honest. I was so into the book, I’m not sure I retained anything of a How-To nature. Several nights, I was up WAY too late saying “Okay, one more chapter. One more chapter. One more…”

Some of the characters I loved(Bran, Arya, Jon, Tyrion, Dany, Khal), some of them I hated (the queen, Joffrey, Viserys, Petyr). I wanted to shake Sansa frequently. But I’m pretty sure every character drew SOME sort of respone from me, and most of them were strong responses. So, yeah, wow. If you haven’t read this, you should. Even if you don’t like BFFs.

Advantages Of Living In The South

When the forecast calls for the potential for snow (Or sleet, or a “wintry mix”), things shut down. Everything shuts down. The best part about that? My job actually cares about the safety of its employees, so they closed those of us in the “affected” area down for Friday. Which meant I had an unexpected–but very much welcome–day off. So I stayed home, and watched the record-breaking snowfall back home (the DFW area). It was beautiful, but I was glad I missed it. Meanwhile, all we got was rain. LOTS of rain. To the point that when I had to go outside, I was immensely grateful for my new rain boots, because there was at least three inches of water standing. Which would have been horrific if the temperature had dropped to the expected low and everything had actually frozen over (A lot of people said that was bound to happen, what with the Saints winning the Superbowl and all).

So instead of working on Friday, I got a lot of stuff done. I’m actually writing on the HTTS story. It’s going well so far. I’m working on revisions for the other three stories. The zombie story is coming along slowly, but surely. The werewolf story…Wow. The actual revision itself should be interesting. And the angel story…I find I’m very unhappy with the POV, but I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do to fix it. For now, it’s enough for me to know that it IS an issue, and I CAN fix it. And I will. No matter how much work it entails.