I figured out how to end my scene. Actually, it will be the same way I end every scene, because it just totally works for the story.
So aside from one minor detail that I need to go tweak in a few places, I’VE TOTALLY FINISHED THE FIRST PART!!
I’ve also written 312 words in the second part. 🙂
My current word count is 24,061. Tomorrow I’ll be doing some things around the house and then babysitting my nephew. Hopefully I can fit in some writing time as well. 🙂
Ok, I only wrote 500 words. Still, I wrote 500 words. That’s 500 more than I had this am. I may play with it a bit more tonight, but I got the final scene done for my first part. I wasn’t quite sure if I just wanted to drop it where I left it, or find some interesting way to wrap it up.
I had a brainstorm about an interesting way to wrap it up. 🙂
Current word count is 24,016.
I don’t think Phantom has ever really seen me in one of my truly manic phases. There are these times when everything just seems to FINALLY come together, and I have this insane creative, motivational rush.
I’ve been in a funk for the past few days. It’s been a combination of missing Phantom, missing my dad, money troubles, and the fact that a lot of people I know are sick, injured or in the hospital right now. (The OTHER thing they all have in common is ME, and they all got sick/injured/hospitalized on my birthday. Do I feel like I have some major bad juju surrounding me right now? FUCK YEAH. I’ve mostly been wanting to hide from the world so I don’t bring that shit to anyone else I love. 😦
But I only really stay down for so long before I do exactly what I need to do and get really selfish and self-involved. I’m completely consumed with myself right now, and that’s what I needed. I needed to treat myself well, take a break from everything, and spend some time in my head. I wallowed, felt a tidal wave of self pity, and now I’m examining what I really want to do with my time while Phantom is away. I want to write.
So I went to my favorite new age bookstore today, partially as just something fun and light to get me out of the house, but partially to get some supplies for a small creativity altar. When I’m in one of these manic phases, I tend to be pretty spiritual and I ritualize everything. I bought a purple candle for creativity, inspiration oil, an incense for each of the 5 elements (each section of my book focuses on one element), and a polished fluorite.
I wish I had also bought a red candle (for motivation and passion), and a blue candle (for knowledge and communication), but that didn’t occur to me until after I left. I think I have some at home, so I’ll check on that.
Another good thing about the new age bookstore was that it gave me the good witchy vibe that I’m trying to inject into my story. I needed that. Needed to be around some woo-woo witchy folk and assorted spiritual doo-dads. There was one great woman there that was large, probably my mom’s age, and was a mixture of gypsy/witch/goth. She had lots of skirts, a shawl, dark eyeliner, bright red hair, and that fabulous pagan-er than though attitude. Like nobody could challenge her commitment to her spirituality, because just LOOK AT HER! She also made jingly sounds as she walked, which reminded me of my description of June.
I wish I had been able to snap a pic on the sly, but there was no way to do it without it being obvious as she was just directly across the counter from me.
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Another thing that has occurred to me is that I need to go back down to the road where my story is set once Phantom comes home. First, I want him to see it. Second, I need to take some pics of it in the winter, as my story stretches from roughly the autumnal equinox to midsummer. I’d like to get pics of it in different seasons to see what I can glean in the mood of the place to add some depth to my descriptions. Plus it’s a fun day trip.
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I mostly finished my keychain for the first part of my story. I’m just waiting on a frog charm to come in, as frogs figure heavily in that part of the story. Each part has a spirit animal that represents the element in that part. Lots of symbolism. I hope I don’t bash people over the head with it, but I need it to make me love the story too.
I hung the keychain from my computer bag. 🙂
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In following Laurell K Hamilton, I keep seeing her ask her followers about timeline issues. First, it’s fabulous to see how many responses she gets. I hope one day to have some dedicated follower(s) that will help me with things like that. Second, It showed how important it is to keep track of these things. I need to start keeping a calendar of events in the book. Because I do have plans for a second book. If I write more than that, it will just become more and more important.
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That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll probably come up with more, since, again, I’m in one of THOSE moods. I’m going to go home and write now.
Especially in sex scenes, I’ve found that using the same terms over and over can be really distracting..
Pussy as sheath
1st time: OK, sure.. *keeps reading*
2nd time: Yes, very sheath-like. I concur wholeheartedly. *keeps reading*
3rd time: Got it. It’s a sheath. Can we move on please? *keeps reading*
4th time: Grrrrr.. *counts previous mentions*
5th time: Goddammit. I need to blog about this.. *quits reading*
..why I haven’t written, YET AGAIN. I’m also not going to explain about how I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
I’m not going to bitch about how I’m setting myself up with impossible standards, and that the authors whose dedication I admire have writing as their ONLY job. (It’s my third job.) I’m not going to whine about how Phantom has been gone for 3 hours now, and how terrified I am that something will happen on his 12 hour drive to Baltimore. That’s for another blog.
What I am going to do is to talk a bit about the book I’m reading and why I like it.
It’s called Wolf Tales by Kate Douglass. And it’s basically werewolf romance/porn. It’s easy to tell that it’s one of her earlier books, although she’s been writing essays, articles, etc. for years and years. But I have great hope for the series in a way that I didn’t have hope for other series that I’ve started and stuck with.
I should also mention that I usually LOATHE anything with a romantic bent. Also, I have a bit of a pet peeve about strange word choices. And it’s driving me crazy how often various genitalia in this book ‘weep’. They don’t do that. Also, pouting pussy lips. Again, they just don’t do that. So the word choices are rankling a bit, and I stop reading to find Phantom to tell him that someone’s junk was weeping again. We then giggle. That’s the kind of couple we are.
However, her sex scenes truly are unique, as is the premise of the ‘Chanku’, a dwindling breed of lycanthropes. She really thought about how to make the story come alive, and the sex scenes usually have something wildly kinky or interesting about them that suck you in. So to speak. Also, the boys are bi. NO bad there.
I’m digging the books. They feel suspiciously like mindless, decadent reading, but the world is rich enough that I’m getting something from it. If nothing else, I could use this kind of abandon in my sex scenes.
Those who know me would be surprised to find how much trouble I have writing sex scenes. I have no problems writing one-off pieces of erotica, because I love the idea of a moment in time, caught in a vignette without too much context to bog it down. In a novel or long story, there’s context that must be taken into account, and the scene must further the story. Characters must be developed, etc. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one hot scene.
But reading authors that do things really WELL can only help with that. I’ve mentioned Cherie Priest’s fabulous dialogue, and now we’ll add Kate Douglass’ hot sex scenes to my list of writing that inspires me.
At least with Phantom gone for a few days, I’ll have a lot of time to write. I’ll be bloody bored otherwise. *sigh*
My birthdays are never all that great.. Something always comes up or important people forget or people are sick or dying or die around my bday… There’s just always something..
So I’ve learned to dread my natal return year after year..
I had just begun to feel hopeful about this one when I had a horrible argument with my mom that left me drinking and crying for the rest of the night.. We then woke this am to find that Phantom’s mom had some pretty gnarly emergency surgery last night.. At Mom’s tonight (which I was dreading), things were fine except she’s hurt her back so horribly that she could barely move..
Can I just fucking skip bdays from now on? I wouldn’t mind missing 1/12 of my life if I could just sleep through the entire month of January.. That would be stellar, thanks.
I don’t mean to bitch.. I honestly save this sort of thing for my personal blog.. But I just wanted to say that that’s why I didn’t write yesterday. I feel justified here. It’s not even a strike because it’s not as if I just fucked off on my duties. I had some real-life things that sucked away my urge to create anything..
But here’s the thing.. There’s ALWAYS some new catastrophe around the corner.. Shit ALWAYS happens. That’s the nature of shit. What do I do when I lose my momentum due to the happening of the shit?
I don’t know. That’s why I’m a professional customer service drone and not a professional author.. But I’m hoping to get there. I DO want this to be my profession. I just need to keep plugging away, even if I fall off the writing wagon, and make it happen for myself.
It’s up to me, because nobody else will ever be as invested in my success as I will.
So it’s time to shut up and write. 🙂
It just occurred to me today that I didn’t write a single damn thing yesterday.
I did record two podcasts, so at least I did something creative, but still. That really doesn’t count. So punishing myself isn’t going to work, and feeling like shit about it won’t do anything either. The more writing becomes a chore, the less I’ll want to do it. So I need to brush myself off and move onward tonight. No guilt, just hope for the future!
Tonight I’ll be editing one of those podcasts, so I’ll be able to do a little bit of light work while I do. I’m probably going to work on Vine’s bio. I won’t have to concentrate on that too hard. I’ve seen a lot of authors say that they build a collage about their characters with words and pictures, and I might do that as a document or something similar wtih her character sketch included. That way, it will be there when I need to go back and refresh myself on details, etc.
I’d like to build in some more quirks, but since she’s basically me, she already has some. (Can’t get enough sugar, picks things up off the ground and carries them in her pockets..)
I also hope to write some on the story itself. But even if I just get to the character sketch(es), I’ll be happy.
On an unrelated note, this cold is killing my hands. Trying to chat in the office is like medieval torture. My hands cramp and freeze. It sucks.. 😦
.. is 23488.
I’m a bit stuck on how to end my first section (water), or if I’m at a good stopping point to go ahead and do it. I’ve already started writing my second part (earth). I’m really excited to be working on a new part of the story. It makes me wonder if divisions like sections, chapters, parts are just as much for the author to take a break and start working on something a bit new as for the reader to progress in the story.
I’ve worked out a reward system for myself though. For each part I finish, I’m going to buy myself a new charm with the animal for that part. So, since I’m close to finished (or possibly completely finished) with water, I’ll buy a frog charm. I’m going to attach them to a keychain that I’m going to make for myself. I’ll probably add an appropriately colored bead. So this section will be frog, and blue for water. I know I have the beads, just not the charms yet. Also, when I finish, I’m going to add a book charm at the bottom. So when it’s all said and done, I’ll have a great keychain that reminds me of all the work I did to finish the book.
I also have word counts in 5000 increments added to my Epic Win app. So I get to mark something off everytime I reach another 5000 words. It’s just something I can do to mark an accomplishment, and I dig that. 🙂
Aside from motivating myself to write every day, my chief writing weakness is dialogue. I know this. It’s been quite some time (since college or earlier) since I really tried to write any.
I asked Phantom to read some that I had written last night, and he politely agreed with me that my dialoge is very mechanical. (Incidentally, once I’ve written more, I’ll need to find some more critical critics. 🙂
My first urge is to drop everything and start researching dialogue. I’m reading Boneshaker right now, and Cherie Priest has some really amazing dialogue. Things like ‘She arranged her words carefully,” etc. I need to study some dialogue and maybe see if I can find a good class online to learn more. I need to make it prettier.
HOWEVER, this would be another way to derail myself from just putting my hands on the keyboard and writing. So my thinking is that I just need to write the damn thing first, then go back and re-write the dialogue in my first edit.
So I’ve been keeping notes about things I need to focus on in the first edit..
1. Re-write dialogue
2. More sensory details (unexpected senses)
3. Fact-check characters and their dialogue against their character sketches. Also, look for contradictions in the text. I’ve never really written anything this long before, so I had no idea that it was so easy to lose track of things I said earlier.
4. Grammar. Remove about 1/3 of the commas I use.
5. Quotes. I tend to use ‘ instead of ” because I use ‘ a lot in my chat job.
6. Names. I’ve changed one character’s name 3 times, and so I keep finding places where her old name appears even though I’ve done find and replace several times.
7. Character quirks. My characters are still really flat right now. I need to add physical details, quirks, and accents to make them distinctive.
When I DO decide to go and pursue some knowledge on how to write pretty talk, I’ll probably go here: http://www.writerscafe.org. They have some great courses and articles. It’s also a great place to send out reading requests, read work from other authors, and there are forums too. I’m AmieRavenson there too, so look me up! 🙂
..and read it every single day..
http://davidhuntershaw.blogspot.com/2011/01/shut-up-and-write-official-manual…
I got some writing in today, just a few sentences. Current word count: 22,553.
We also went walking in the snow tonight. I got some good shots. They may end up on TrippingVine, but they may not since they weren’t really a trip OUT, as it were. We’ll see. Either way, I did a few creative things tonight.
I also figured out where my interference blue Pearl Ex powder went. I need that for a rune project I’ll be working on. I’ve been looking for it for days, so that was a big win. Things are looking up! 🙂
AmieRavenson 