Sep
28

Playing With The Scaffolding

Posted in blog, writing | Leave a comment
So as I’m cruising along in the book writing scheme of things, I’ve come to realize I’m a big carrot dangler. When I first started writing BoD – I just wrote whatever scene I wanted when I wanted to…and then fit them into place. A Sliver of Shadow was a little different because I was under deadline and I didn’t want to write it that way. I wanted to go “in order.” Which became a little more complicated once I realized that the 40k or so I’d written before I sold BoD was going to have to be completely reworked. And reworked. And reworked. But this third book is more of a clean slate. I don’t really have any preconceived notions about it, except for the basic concept I had to submit for the outline to the publisher. In some ways that makes it easier…but in others it makes things… Read more
Sep
21

Tension

Posted in back pain, blog, tension, writing | Leave a comment
Apologies for yesterday. Things are a hair better, but not by much. However, in an attempt to put a semi-positive spin on the pain factor, I’ll do a quick comparison of it to writing tension. Over the weekend, the pain was awful. Literally, I couldn’t leave my bed for longer than 30 minutes – heating pads, TENS and all that other fun stuff. Monday morning the pain had moved somewhat from the epicenter and the relief was amazing. I was completely mellow for most of the day at work. I still hurt, but the relief was so palpable that my body completely relaxed. (Only to betray me on Tuesday, but I digress.) Anyway, in thinking on it, and because I was in the process of trying to write something smutty, it sort of occurs to me that it’s an awful lot like writing a relationship between characters. You’ve got to… Read more
Jul
26

Something New

Posted in blog, ironheart, wip, writing | 9 Comments
I’ve been vacillating back and forth about this potential new story. 1st PoV or 3rd? Stick with the beginning I wrote a few years ago or restructure it into something else? Although the core of the story has stayed the same more or less, the world building side of things has taken a slightly different twist than I planned. I’m going to run with it for now, though I’m still feeling it out. A few new characters have popped up too, and I’m not sure how they’re all going to work with each other. Sometimes I’ll actually throw new characters into bed or some other awkward situation, just to see how things play out. (No, I almost never use those scenes – they’re strictly my brain figuring out the pieces.) But this time around I’ve got a younger set of characters. I’m not sure if this is going to be YA or… Read more
Jul
24

Blank Canvas Syndrome

Posted in blog, nothing to fear but fear itself, writing | 2 Comments
The thing about world-building from scratch is that there’s just so much of it to do. Every time I write a detail down, it just leads to a whole bunch of other questions about other things that I really ought to know or think about. It’s a windy path, and it can be fun, but it’s also a little easy to play the “what if” game – and as amusing as that is, I’d rather just start writing and worry about some of the details later. Plus there’s that whole question of whether or not there’s really anything original anymore – or am I just rehashing what’s already out there. I’d like to think I’ve got it in me to come up with *something* new, but who knows? I’m messing around with more science than fantasy at the moment, and physics just isn’t my thing. I’m a tad edgy about… Read more
Nov
17

The Lines of Love

Posted in awesomesauce, love, terminator, writing | 4 Comments
I was thinking back along some of my favorite movies and books last night, specifically to try to find one of those defining moments/scenes/lines that just *makes* that story a part of me. It might be hard to define, but you know what I mean. It’s that little bit that you always make a point of watching when you’re flipping the channels on the TV or the dog-eared passage of a book that you read whenever you’re having a shitty day. Whatever it is, it resonates deeply.(And the same could be said of a piece of music – what refrain or musical bridge takes root in you?) I’ve seen it said somewhere that dialogue in books is never really all that realistic because it would be terribly boring if it were. That’s probably true to some degree. As authors we straddle that line between keeping things interesting without going over… Read more