Joely Sue Burkhart

I’ve been hugely busy on writing stuff, but alas, Sven is really pissed at me right now.  I have not gotten my 1K a day for like two days in a row.  I didn’t even write on The Fire Within last night.  *cringe*  I’m so close to finishing it, but I just…  There’s an avoidance there, or something.  My mind wasn’t ready to finish it for some reason. 

Meanwhile, I’m plotting another novella that’s quite a departure for me.  I’ve had the idea for nearly a year now (actually much longer than that, as you’ll see).  Originally, I thought I would write it for the Black Orchid contest.  Yes, it started as a mystery, contemporary setting at that.  But then it began mutating over time.

See, I’m a sponge.  I pick up little things, bits of dialogue, themes of real life, colors, descriptions from all over everywhere, movies, stories, blog posts, news…  I don’t even realize it’s happening as those bits float into my brain and stick.  I always think there’s no rhyme or reason to the process.  Why does this bit stick to the mystery-mutant-story and not something else?  I have no idea.  But the bits accumulate, morphing, breeding in the darkness of dreams and sometimes nightmares.  Multiple ideas collide and blend together.  

Until something sparks.

The whole thing detonates in my mind, an explosion of story, character, plot, and in that illumination, I can see the story arc.  It’s those flashes that make me manic, obsessive, staying up half the night to scribble the idea down before the vision fades into oblivion.

The original mystery has morphed into a contemporary romance with a paranormal/mystery flavor.  At its foundation, if you search really hard, you can find bits of a contemporary romance I started years ago called “Unbelievable,” my anya (Sha’Kae al’Dan for gift) to my Beloved Sister.  I’m ashamed to say I never finished it.

So when I finish this one, it will be her anya.  I’ll be doing a modified Fast Draft in September to finish it.  ASSUMING, of course, that I’ve finished the CURRENT novella.  It must be done first.  But if the vision holds, and the story doesn’t slide into category-land (which I unfortunately tend to do when I write contemporary romance), I might enter this new project in the Brava contest.  Hence the urgency.  I’ve got a good bit plotted.  I understand the three main characters.  It’s mostly character driven, huge on the internal conflict aspect, with the mystery/paranormal part to balance the rawer, darker conflict with a little lighter humor.

My other distraction last night is due to PBW’s freelance post yesterday.  At Craigslist, I found that a local magazine is looking for writers.  So last night we drove up to Borders and I bought several copies of the magazine, began jotting ideas, and sketched out a first-draft of my very sparce writer’s resume.

So lots of writing work, but none of it for Sven.  I’m laying low today and will try to make up a chunk of words.  Hopefully Sven won’t find me until tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Writing, 70 Days of Sweat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.