So BZZZ Busy…

So looked at my calendar and realized that OMG I NEED TO GET A POST DONE!  So huge apologies for the very brief post this week but man, oh man, has it been busy. Small fires flaring up everywhere, the Prankster Duo turning my hair gray (not like it had far to go), and then just hours ago realizing that the third revision of chapter 2 for book 3 must be re-written.

And here’s why Chapter 2 is up for another rewrite and a small peek into a writer’s brain–

You have a rogue werewolf who’s chasing down his ex-girlfriend who’s dumped him and was out clubbing with friends before hooking up with a new guy.  Furball takes exception to the rival and leaves him in a bloody heap, not breathing.  Then proceeds to corner ex in a club.  There they argue and she turns her back on him and walks away. Now, what’s more believable?

A.  Furball gets mad, Xander confronts him and he proceeds to head to the alley and the rumble between him and Xander ensues.  This means the humans are still in the dark about the existence of shifters.

or

B.  Furball gets mad, Xander confronts him and he proceeds to lose control tearing apart the varied humans around him causing a panic which limits Xander’s ability to reach him.  When she finally does, they rumble admist a screaming storm of body parts and panicking humans.  Now Division gets called in, Warrick the Alpha gets called in and it’s one big cluster.

So which makes more exciting reading?

Yep, I’m with you..so back to the drawing board and we’ll start drafting Version B.

*SIGH*  Even with an outline this book is being a stubborn ass from the get go.  Just when I think I have it all figured out, my characters snicker, slap me across the face and dash away.

I love being a writer…

–Wicked

It’s Amazing What A Little Time Off Will Bring…

I came back to the Swamp on Sunday after spending the weekend with Snarky at the RWA Desert Dreams conference down in the Valley of the Sun and found the Zombie Horde had finally deserted Dreamer’s little piece of property.  I’m guessing Eerie and Mischevious have been making tracks to the Impentrable Forest considering the path of gnawed bones littering the trail.  Have to love those Piranha Hummingbirds, they clean their dinner plates!  Not to worry, the Prankster Duo has no problem attracting new Zombies, it seems to be an inborn talent of theirs.

So after rounding up the Hellhound, I was pleased to see my Knight in Slightly Muddy Armor had managed to keep the Duo busy while I was away.  Seems there was a required marathon of movies involving a horned-helmeted blond with a facination for hammers, a green muscle head with a temper problem, and that dashing king of sarcasm who looks good in red and self perpetuating battery.  Something about all three, plus a red-head in latex and, if I do say so myself, a rather good looking archer gathering for their debut this weekend. The tickets have already been purchased–twice.

In the meantime, Snarky and I attended this conference.  Now you may wonder why two paranormal, urban fantasy writers would attend a gathering of those mavens of love and hard chests, but there are some really good workskhops at these things. Plus we were considering kidnapping a few agents and editors for our own amusement.  Since this time I wasn’t on pins and needles endlessly practicing my story pitch, I was able to enjoy the expierence.  For writers, conferences are like a red carpet gala–you get to meet the actual human that writes those books you wait on pins and needles for every Tuesday.  It can reduce a 41 year old to a 16 year old in like two minutes flat.  It’s so embarrassing!

Anyway, other than the massive amounts of information that I’m still processing, the biggest success I pulled from my three day stint was the eight hour brainstorming session Snarky and I indulged ourselves in.  What was funny was there was an actual brain storming session planned on Saturday night during the dinner.  We got a head start, because that’s just how we roll.  We headed over to the nearest barrista heaven, spent two and half hours there before realizing we might miss dinner, dashed back to the conference, gathered necessary sustanance, then hunkered down in our room and balcony and spent the next 6 plus hours taking everything that had been thrown at us and incorporating it into our WIPs (works in progress).

Doing things this way is a double edged sword.  I was having issues with Shadow’s Moon (Book 3 of the Kyn Kronicles) and by the end of the evening realized why (you really do need a strong villian for a good story!), and now all those pages I’ve accumlated are being moved to the cut pile–yes indeed, we are starting over.  Here’s hoping that since there’s a clearer picture of where we’re going and Xander’s stopped being so damn coy, it will go much faster.  Plus Snarky figured out her sticking point on her hush-hush project.  It’s hard to explain to a non-writer how much fun the expierence was because for some peeps the idead of talking through plot points, character motivation, series arcs, and personalities is just….blehh!  But for me–I LOVED IT! 

Plus it was the most awesomest thing in the world to meet both newbie and not-so-newbie writers and READERS! I swear the writing community just rocks.  Conferences are where no one gets upset if you space in the middle of a conversation, they understand sometimes those voices in your head just drown out those around you.  Plus where else could you chat about what exactly constitutes a psychopath versus a sociopath, or why corsets are a hell of a lot harder to get rid of than just “ripping” them off–think bones and damn tough material? There was even the most entertaining conversation regarding the staminia of the men of the Paranormal community versus the rakes of the historicals–truly riveting!

Now the goal is to make it to the Paranormal Conference next year because as lovely as the RWA crowd was–I think I’d like to expierence the wild, twisted worlds of the Paranorms for a bit.  Think of what it would do to my Muse!  She’d have others to play blade-darts with, they could go on Zombie hunts, and maybe torment a few demons along the way.   Who knows, maybe we’ll get to come back with new alligator boots next year! 

-Wicked

Pesky Internal Voices

Here’s the deal with diving into your next work in progress after spending an incredible amount of time editing your last piece–your inner critic refuses to shut the hell up!

We’ll refer to mine as VON (voice of my nightmares).

Von showed no fear when I threaten to take her out and dump her in the hole I dug out back in the swamp just last week for such an occassion.  Oh no, she kept right on.  “Don’t tell me, show me!” 

Show her?  Ohhh, I could show her all sorts of cutting repartees that will leave lasting impressions.  Instead, I gritted my teeth and tried to drown her under the pounding melodies of Seether and Nickleback.  When that didn’t work, I brought out the big guns–Korn and the greatest of them all…Trent Reznor.  But still, Von’s venemous whispers wafting through my mind.

I was in the midst of getting Xander back to her partner and a dead body in book 3, when Von broke through.

“That is not going to work. Who told them about the body? Who found it? How come the Pack knows, but no human is involved? And where’s Warrick?”

Really? I refrained from slamming my head into the wooden surface of the table next to my laptop by the barest fraction.  Wouldn’t do to upset my baristas, besides I might spill my drink.  Gritting my teeth, I went back an re-read what I had written.  Damn it…Von’s right…so I went back and rewrote. 

For awhile Von was placated with frappacinnos and coffee cake, while Xander and I worked through a few challenges.  Yes, some of them involving the alpha of the Northwest Pack, but still, we were getting there.  Then Von butted in…

“Why?”

Stumped by the strange question that contained no extranous commentary, I sat there blinking.  “Huh?”

“Why? Why kill this one?  What does his death do to the pack?”

Umm, okay, because…and I explained to her-again-why we were doing this.  She hummed under breathe and sipped her frappacinno.  “Okay, that should work, but we’ll have to see..”

Here’s the thing with Von. As exhausting as she is to work with when I’m writing, she’s an even bigger pest as I’ve been trying to figure out the cover of Shadow’s Soul.  Last week, I asked for feedback on Shadow’s Edge cover over at Cover Art Review blog and got exactly what I asked for.  Don’t mistake me, I’m actually really happy with what I got back.  There were no rave reviews, but the actual feedback was helpful.  However, it did give Von some serious ammunition as she peeked in on what I was considering for Shadow’s Soul.  I have a feeling that until I hit the big leagues or discover some unknown artistic genius residing deep inside me, I’m going to have to make what I have access to for cover art–work.

As for Von–I’ve tried luring her over to Eerie and Mischevious’s neck of the woods, but short of tranqualizing, blindfolding, and trucking her out that way, she seems determined to stick around and torment me.  Even making her play darts with the Muses doesn’t seem to do anything except make her more crabby!  Maybe if I turn up my music, she’ll get bored and go pester Snarky!  With my luck she’ll have a twin or hell, be part of triplets, and then all three of them can torment the rest of the Evil 7 and drive us all insane!

–Wicked

I Loved the Book, but the Movie….

How often have we heard this or said it ourselves? The answer is probably almost every time the subject has arisen. The stock reply as to why people prefer the book is usually the lack of the characters inner thoughts, or not being inside their heads.

Fair enough.

I think the reasons go beyond that, however. In recent posts, Wicked has announced her book cover for her soon to be released ‘The Kyn Kronicles-book 1, Shadow’s Edge’, and Eerie has discussed description.

Writers spend a great deal of time scattering description (both character and setting) throughout their stories in the least intrusive manner possible. It’s almost an art in deciding when to spend longer passages describing something or someone without losing the reader. You have to know/intuit when the reader needs more robust description. If you get it wrong, it becomes another dreaded ‘purple passage’.

Wicked’s book cover is great. The problem for the rest of the dwarves is we’ve been reading about her protagonist, Raine, for a few years—book two is almost finished—and we have individually drawn a picture in our minds of Raine. Probably no two of us have drawn the same picture, but all are slightly different than the book cover. It will not be a problem for a reader who purchases the book because they will know what she looks like before they read the story.

No conflict.

Getting back to the book vs. movie, I believe its many small things that prevent us from fully enjoying a movie when we’ve enjoyed the book first. In our minds, we’ve set certain things about the settings/characters based upon the author’s descriptions. When the character looks different than we’d imagined or the castle has fewer towers than were noted in the book, it jars us out of story.

The solution for this? The only way I can see is shoot the movie first, then write the book. The author would have all the pictures to describe in the story.

The good news? Most prefer the book!

J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien

What do those two have in common? Both are extreme back-story authors. Rowling reportedly has literally hundreds of notebooks filled to the brim with information such as the 700 rules for Quidditch; Tolkien felt the need to develop a complete new language for his tales.

While these two may be on one polar end of the scale, many others have only the merest whiff of their fictional world prior to writing.

Both approaches have been successful. It is up to the individual writer to find what works for them. I personally have found that the more I develop in terms of back story, character studies and general world building, the easier the plotting and actual writing goes.

Why is that?

I think going through the process of developing your characters and world helps suggest the type of story that should be told.

It is not the quickest way to get a manuscript to its first draft stage, but it may be one of the quicker ways to reach a good final draft. Knowing what the terrain is like on the other side of the mountain before you get there allows for proper foreshadowing in the first draft, and will lead to fewer re-writes.

Is all that extra work worth the effort?

If you’re like me, and your story runs out of gas at a certain point, or your characters head off in directions unknown, it’s worth looking into.

Just a thought.

A free product–FreeMind–is a mind-mapping software for those who prefer keeping information on their computer rather than hand-written notes and journals.