I think I was actually more productive when my laptop was in the shop.

I’ve been working on Gifted using Scrivner on the Mac.  The problem is…it’s a desktop.  It’s upstairs in my office.  My character letters and background are on that computer.  Lately, I’ve been getting my ideas while the laptop is handy, but I don’t want to start a new file when I’ve already got the file upstairs.  It’s not as easy to simply e-mail the file to myself (like I would if I were writing in Word).  I’m sure I can export those files to txt or rtf — I just haven’t bothered to figure out how yet.

I guess it sounds silly, but I can’t get the organization right for this story.  I can’t find the “routine” that will get me from blank page to the end.  I know it’s there — I just need to figure it out.

I’m on a yahoo group where people have been talking and asking questions about Storyboards.  I may document some of my background preparation as I build this story.  I’ve done it before, but I lost some of those entries when I moved my site.  What do you think — are you bored by process entries?  Surely it would be better than blog silence while I dink around between computers!

Maybe it’s the whole “going back to school” business, but September is always the start of a really productive fall for me.  Many businesses restart their fiscal year in July; I tend to restart my word meter in September.

Not that I didn’t write in June and July.  I did.  But the level of intensity was completely different.  I did get a major project kicked out the door (finally!!) and finished and submitted a shorter story by the deadline.  I also worked more on promo behind the scenes stuff for the print release of Rose.  (Boy, the post office is going to looooove me in the next few months!)

Now, though, it’s time to get down to business and get the next major project churning.  This month, I’ve been character building Victor and Shiloh in their story tentatively called “Gifted.”  I’ve talked about my process before, so I won’t bore you again, but suffice it to say that the character letter is still one of my most important tools.  Victor wrote me a letter this weekend, where I learned about how he blew out his knee (if you remember from Dear Sir, I’m Yours, Victor was a star college quarterback), discovered his greatest strength/weakness, revealed some old lingering guilt and fear, and how he came to find–and use–the riding crop for the first time.

I’m working on Shiloh’s letter, but she’s been a harder nut to crack.  I don’t have her cast as anyone yet, which is a problem.  She’s not firm in my mind.  I know some general elements of her personality and even some of her past, but not the key parts that will make this a killer story.  I need her fears, her failures, her deepest darkest longings.  So far, all I’ve got are her longings for Victor.  *laughs*  I know she’s gone to extreme lengths to get Victor to admit what he feels when he looks at her.  She’s planned this whole elaborate scheme out just to net herself…for him.  But I still don’t know enough about her to see her face.

A blog plays a part in this story (or at least it did when I first sketched it out).  I think the key to figuring out Shiloh will involve a series of blog entries that will actually kill two birds with one stone.  They play a part in the plot; they play a part in me understanding her character better.  That’s how Rae’s letters developed too — and they ended up HUGELY important to the story.  I want Shiloh’s blog to be just as crucial.  Yes, I already know what she calls it:  V’s Gift.  You did catch that Shiloh means “gift,” right?  I’ll be playing on “gift” and “gifted” throughout the story.

I’ll continue working on her this week, and I’ll run both characters through the Emotional Toolbox.  I know most of the external plot already, but I need the inner workings all laid out.  I have a few side characters that need to be more than shells, so I’ll also flesh them out.  I already know the theme, thanks to a song that Molly directed me to ages ago.  Time is Running Out by Muse:

I won’t let you bury it.  I won’t let you smother it.  I won’t let you murder it.

Come September 1st, I want to be grinding through a minimum of 1K a day.

Even back in 2007 when I first jotted ideas for this story, I knew Victor had a riding crop that was very important to him. 

Why a riding crop in particular?  It’s not like he’s a jockey, nor is this a historical.  So why would a man have a riding crop, other than the stereotypical reasons?  (Yeah, he uses it like that, too — he’s a sadist after all.) 

I got the answer last night.  I’d just gone to bed and I was sooo sleepy, so I was afraid I’d forget it this morning.  Thankfully, I did not.  I guess it was too magical.  Not that this little tidbit is so amazing — it’s not, just an item of his backstory.  But the process becomes magical.  I love to figure out how or why one little seemingly innocent item can suddenly carry so much value and emotion.

Victor wants to write me a letter explaining all this good stuff.  Once I get an important item like this for Shiloh, I think I may be in a position to write the full outline.  I have to get the backstory right first before I can hope to write the main story — it makes it so much easier to torment them.  🙂

Gregar has his ivory rahke; Victor has his riding crop.  For both characters, it’s a symbol of their most secret heart’s desire, and their greatest fear of all.

I’ve been feeling a sense of anticipation…and fear. 

Yes, it’s that time again.  The beginning of a new project, fraught with decisions. 

I thought this project would be easy to begin.  I have about 10K I wrote back in 2007 to outline a rough plot and sketch out the characters a bit.  I’ve also finished quite a bit of research since then about the BDSM lifestyle.  As a result, the characters have morphed in my mind, taking on lives of their own, voicing their desires and fears and totally messing up my old outline (which is actually a good thing).

Yet there’s that lingering since of fear.  It’s not the unknown, because I have very clear purposes defined, both for myself and the characters.  I think it’s fear OF the characters.

The only other character who has managed to make me afraid…is Gregar.  It’s no coincidence in the slightest that I originally cast Adrian Paul as both Gregar and Victor.  They share more similarities than I ever expected when I started outlining Victor’s story back in 2007.

So yeah, “Gifted” is shaping up to be one whopper of a story.

Have you ever had a character that scared the bejeezus out of you?  What’d you do to work through it?