Category: writing

I’m the tortoise

So, school started again today. Not that I went. Um, the roads were pretty crappy this morning due to a winter weather system that moved in early this morning, and after watching news and traffic reports for a while, I decided I didn’t really want to risk driving 25 miles to school on the first day of the semester. Yes, I hate missing class. But at least this was a day that would have been at least partially taken up with going over the syllabus, which I’ve already read. So instead of risking my life with crazy Texas drivers who freak out at the first snowflake (and let’s not even talk about ice), I stayed home. I did quite a bit of homework. Yeah, I know, it’s the first day of classes. But the more I get done during the week, the less I have to do this weekend. And with 17 hours this semester, there’s a lot to do.

Despite my busy schedule, I still want to keep up with my writing. That means I have to set small goals, instead of my usual over-the-top, all-or-nothing method. With that end in mind, I’ve decided to do a very brief chapter outline of the werewolf story, to make revisions a bit less overwhelming. So I outlined the first chapter today. Granted, it’s maybe 5 sentences, but it’s progress, and I plan to do more work on it the rest of the week. I also plan on converting one chapter of the zombie story to first-person each week, and I also intend to get in at least one writing session a week on the new story. In addition, I’d like to keep up a twice-weekly blogging schedule. That doesn’t sound like much, but I do have two other blogs, so that’s a bit more time-intensive.

This week I’m focusing on baby steps. The tortoise won the race, didn’t he?

the demons of self-doubt

I made a bit more progress on the new story, a little more than 1,000 words or so. I love the story idea, of course (or I wouldn’t be writing about it), but sometimes I do get a little discouraged. Sometimes, my inner editor/critic/peanut gallery starts talking louder than normal, and that voice drowns out my Muse and my love for the story. That little voice says “What’s the point? You’re NEVER going to get published. Ever. You’re a terrible writer, and you write crap, and no one will EVER want to read it. Why do you bother?”

Sometimes it’s hard to silence that voice. Sometimes that’s all I can hear when I sit down at the computer. Sometimes I think that voice is right.

It’s a struggle right now, but I won’t let the demons win.

Does this count as “work”?

So…after being told repeatedly by several people that I needed to watch The Walking Dead because it is, apparently, the greatest show ever, I finally ordered the first season on DVD. It came in today. Now I’m faced with a conundrum: stare at the blank page of my new story, or this:

like a boss

This is a really tough choice, isn’t it? Yeah, RIGHT. So, since I’m obviously not going to be staring at the blank page, my next question is this: does watching I-don’t-know-how-many-episodes of The Walking Dead count as “writing”? Not actual writing, clearly, but research for writing? I mean, my best friend and I DID write that zombie story. And my new story DOES have zombies in it….So. Clearly this is writing-related. Win!

Progress…of a sort

I did do some work on the new story yesterday. Okay, I didn’t actually start writing it. I planned on it, but it was Christmas, and I spent the day with my mom and my brother, plus I ended up spending the night at my mom’s house because of the weather, so I wasn’t exactly able to write. But I DID get another chapter outlined, and flesh out my MC a little bit. That counts as progress, right? So. Tomorrow. Again….

Inspiration vs Motivation

Have you ever been so excited about a new story that you jumped out of bed, raced to the computer, and spent hours with your fingers flying over the keyboard as the story poured out of you and onto the page? Yeah, me neither. Well. Let me modify that statement a tiny bit: I haven’t had this happen to me lately. It’s happened, but it’s been a good long while. Say…years. Oh, I’ve written (some). I’ve completed stories. I’ve had new ideas I’ve been excited about. But never to the point where it completely took over my life. As a matter of fact, I have a new story idea right now that I’m really excited about. Sadly…I have no motivation. Seriously. It’s my semester break. I have plenty of time to write. But I haven’t. Not a single word. I have a phase outline of the first chapter. I know a bit about the world and the characters. I have more than enough to start. I just…haven’t.

I need to find my motivation. My Muse (inspiration) is probably waiting at the keyboard for me. All I need to do is show up and be ready to work. Tomorrow. I’ll start tomorrow.

Where Have I Been?

…that’s a good question. Let me see if I can give you the simplest answer. (Simple. Ha. There IS no simple answer. But I’ll try to explain.). For the first time ever, I started NaNo but didn’t finish it. I think I wrote about 18k words, and then hit a wall. Not a wall in my writing, a wall in my life. For the past four months, I’ve been struggling with depression. And also, apparently, denial. But about halfway through November, I hit this wall, and realized I wasn’t getting any better on my own. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus on anything (Good luck with writing…). I didn’t want to be around people. I was sad and hopeless all the time. Thank God, I have good friends, some of whom have been through this. I finally listened to them, saw a counselor and my doc, and now, six weeks later, thanks to meds and some other changes I’ve made, I’m feeling MUCH better. It’s hard to overstate just how much better I feel now. I feel like myself again. And that is SO nice.

I’ve started being active in my crit group again. I’ve started revising my Werewolf story (again). I’m even planning on starting a new story, if not today, then Saturday. And I plan to start blogging here regularly again. I’m back. You’ve been warned….

NaNo: Day One

So, despite my already-full schedule, I decided to do NaNo this year. I skipped last year, but before that, I won five years in a row. I need the outlet of writing, so I’m giving it a go again this year. Without an outline. With only a handful of character names and only the haziest of plot ideas. I’m writing about Spartans. And Sirens. It’s gonna be great…

Day One Word Count:  1,682

Earth Angel, by Ruth Ellen Parlour

Earth Angel is the first novel by UK author Ruth Ellen Parlour. This high fantasy novel, aimed at young adults, is set in a world completely unlike our own. The Earth Angels, serving their gods, fight to protect Eardesha in a world filled with many familiar fantasy creatures—like dragons—and many unfamiliar ones as well, including hybrids—human-animal crosses—and the monstrous Krieger. Earth Angels is the first in a series.

Gabrielle is imprisoned in sinister Khartaz prison, along with her brother, Oz. Desperate to escape the horrors of life there, she and her brother plot their escape, only to face the monsters in the surrounding desert that snatch their friends away one by one. Faith is an Earth Angel intent on reuniting with her lover, whom she left behind, and questioning the meaning of her calling. Zenovia is an orphan who only wants to find her parents, a search that will take her places she never dreamed of.

When an army of the vicious Krieger invades Eardesha with a dark power that threatens to destroy the entire land, the military turns Khartaz prison into a training ground for the convicts in the hope of stalling the destruction. Gabrielle finds herself drawn back to the prison against her will, called by the gods to help her people. Together with Faith, she will uncover a secret the gods have kept hidden for thousands of year, and race to stop the Krieger from destroying Eardesha forever.

Filled with varied landscapes and vivid creatures, Earth Angel is an intriguing first novel set in a fascinating world. The characters are well written and colorful, and the relationships between them bring the story to life. The pages are filled with action and adventure, and will keep the reader racing to find out what happens.

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It’s a different type of YA fantasy–no vampires or werewolves in sight–and the strong female characters are a refreshing change as well. I liked the idea of the hybrids, too. Sort of SF, but it gave the world a neat twist, which is always a good thing. As an added bonus, Ruth Ellen Parlour will be doing a guest post here on Friday as part of her Earth Angel blog tour, and one commenter that day will receive a free e-copy of the book! So be sure and check back Friday to see what Ms. Parlour has to say about writing romance.

Is Fan Fiction the Devil (or am I overreacting)?

So, a couple of days ago, I got an email with this little story in it from GalleyCat, about a book deal worth seven figures for a work that started out as Twilight fan fiction (Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture, by Sylvain Reynard). And no, I’m not talking about Fifty Shades of Grey. If you haven’t heard about Fifty Shades of Grey (by E L James), where the heck have you been for the past few months? It also started out as a Twilight fan fiction piece, albeit one of erotica.

However, these two works of fan fiction are not your usual, run-of-the-mill, only-read-by-fans-on-some-website fan fiction. Fifty Shades of Grey has been phenomenally successful. According to Wikipedia, “On 1 August 2012, amazon.co.uk announced that they had sold more copies of Fifty Shades of Grey than they had of the entire Harry Potter series combined, making E. L. James their best-selling author ever, overtaking J.K. Rowling.” And according to Reynard’s blog yesterday, Gabriel’s Inferno is #35 on the New York Times Bestsellers List (Ebook/Fiction).

My initial reaction to these two pieces of information isn’t exactly printable, but it amounts to something along the lines of “Are you freaking kidding me?!” Fan fiction is, by definition (again, Wikipedia), “fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator.” So, these two writers were such huge fans of the Twilight series and its characters that they went out and wrote their own stories about these characters/this world.

Okay. I can understand that. I understand loving characters and a world so much that you just can’t bear to let them go. I love The Dragonriders of Pern. I have no idea how many times I’ve read that series and wished I could be a dragonrider. I can’t even put into words how much I love Gone with the Wind (and for the record, I’ve read that something like upwards of 20 times). Scarlett kicks a**, even if she is kind of clueless sometimes and makes me a little angry (Yes, I still get mad every time I read that book. Who in their right mind would want Ashley when Rhett is right there?). But I’ve never written any sort of re-telling of the story, or written my preferred version of what happened between them.

So, again, are you kidding me? Don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe every writer has the right to write whatever they want, whatever moves them, no matter what anyone else thinks of it. But it bothers me that these two authors are making a substantial amount of money off of works that are based on someone else’s creation. Maybe they changed the names/locations/plots to distance themselves. Maybe the books, in their current incarnations, aren’t anything remotely similar to their original versions (I really can’t say. Apart from the brief bits in the GalleyCat links above, I haven’t read either of them.). Maybe these authors were so inspired by Twilight that they realized their dreams of writing a novel. However….

Writing something based on someone else’s creation would feel like stealing to me. On a personal level, I couldn’t do it. Writing a piece of fan fiction strictly for yourself is one thing. Writing it and putting it out there for others to read, even if it’s made clear that it is based on someone else’s work, is another. Yes, maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but still, you took someone else’s work, changed it up, and called it your own. I read Eragon, too, and it’s similarities to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars bothered me immensely, so maybe this is my own personal problem, but what does everyone else think about this?

/end rant

Maybe the Muse is Here to Stay

I’ve been pretty consistent with the writing the past few weeks. My weekly word count goal has been 10k, and I’ve hit it all but one week out of the last three (and that week I wrote 7k, still not too shabby). I was getting a little off-track with Calder, but I did some brainstorming on Sunday, and I think I have a better grip on where things are going. I haven’t done any more outlining, but I do have a brief synopsis of the rest of the story.

My co-author and I have also started working on the zombie story again. Right now, I’m in the re-reading-because-it’s-been-so-long-I’ve-forgotten-what-we-wrote stage. The story is sitting at around 100k, and it’s all but finished, but it needs a lot of work, I’m not going to lie. We’re currently doing a lot of emailing back and forth about what works and what doesn’t, and I think we’re going to change the whole thing to rotating first-person POV. I’m also going to need someone with some military experience to read over my chapters (while not laughing at what I’m quite sure I got wrong), and give me some feedback. At the very least, killing people/zombies on the page as gruesomely as possible is always entertaining.

I also finally, finally started revising the werewolf story. It’s taken me almost a year to get my head straight enough to revise this story, but I’m so glad I finally got it together. I love this story. I really do. And with my editor’s suggestions, I’m hoping to make it the best I possibly can. And maybe self-publish it…

Too bad I can’t get my “real” life to go so well…