Category: The Writing

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Transitions and Sequence

Another downside to “dream writing” is the transition from scene to scene (or night to night).  e.g. I’m dreaming the big scenes, not the passage of insignificant moments that explain how the characters got from one event to another.  I don’t have a good sense of time.  I have to connect those dots eventually and move seamlessly from one scene to another, which isn’t always a quick fix.

Last night, my mind kept jumping ahead to a scene with Victor.  (Gee, I have no idea why.  haha)  I know this scene takes place in the first half of the book, but where, exactly?  Is it Act I, or the midpoint of Act II?  I don’t know.  I have a feeling it might be sooner than later, especially since I don’t know what happens in between.

And here’s where writing without an outline gets frustrating.  I have no idea how long the story will be, because I don’t know the details of Act III so I have no way of gauging how far down the road I am.  I’ve been writing careful chapter and scene breaks, but that may have to change because I don’t know what to fill the gaps with yet. 

It’s sort of like excavation, and there are major parts of the skeleton still buried.  I can only see the tips of bone protruding, and I’m going to have to spend some time digging them out.  The trick is balancing my compelling urge to write down the bone sticking out part–it’s so clear in my mind right now, but I’m afraid I’ll lose the clarity.  Like waking up from a vivid dream and feeling it fade away no matter how hard you grasp at the wisps.

But now that I’ve talked about it and aired some of the issues, I think I have an answer to my question about that scene with Victor.  I’m pretty sure it’s the “crossing the threshold” scene for Vicki to end Act I.  Either she’ll accept the journey or she won’t.  (Who am I kidding, you know she’ll accept the journey–but I need to cover her doubt.)  So now I have the goal to write toward for the end of Act I.

Hope some more bones start sticking up soon.

Of course, the other problem I’m battling is time constraints and other commitments.  My first priority this week is The Bloodgate Codex.  First round of revisions are due back by 2/28 and they are not tiny little fixes, but changes that affect multiple scenes (trickle-down effect).  I didn’t work on it yesterday because I needed to let my mind adjust to Xbalanque = Balam = Ruin in my mind.  The dust has settled, and I’ll be tackling a second bullet today.

Vicki will be my reward tonight.  But maybe I should jot a few notes about Victor before I forget…

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Layering

The downside to “dream writing” is that I have to do more revising as I write than I normally do.

When I see the story in my head from start to finish, then I can spend time to build the details in my mind.  I don’t have to backtrack as much, because I already know the main thoroughfare to “the end.”  Revision, then, is a pass straight through the story, start to end, where I smooth.  I might shift things around a little, but the roadmap is already pretty clear in my mind.

When I dream a scene, I can see it clearly, but I may not see much further.  Then the next night, I dream another scene, and another, and it’s going so great, and I’m so excited…

Then I’m cooking dinner and I think, OH.  I should totally have Jesse give her a birthday card.  That would be perfect, because Elias forgot her birthday entirely.  It will become another little detail, notes and special things that only Jesse does that will add personality and depth to the story.

Great idea, right?  Except the whole birthday card element made me go back to the opening scene in chapter one and revise it.  I had to lay down that thread, and bring it through to chapter two, where the ouch element slapped Elias up side the head.  This kind of detail will affect the plot too much for me to leave it to later.  It had to be revised.  Now.

6600+ words this week as the story unfolds.  I’ll probably share a snippet on Friday.

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Process

I think it was Patti O’Shea who mentioned once that her process is slightly different for each book.  I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly with this latest project.

I’ve blogged enough about my process for you guys to know that I typically plot out the main points of the hero’s journey extensively.  Just look back at the character clinic posts to see how much work I do to build my characters before I ever write a word.  I’ve filled up binders, created spreadsheets, and even done Post-its on the wall.

But not for Vicki.  No, she doesn’t want any of those things.  All she wants is my dream time.  For the first time in a very long time, I’m dreaming a book again, not snippets here and there, but a clear, cohesive movie in my hazy not-quite-asleep moments.  I figured out the last puzzle pieces with her hero situation Sat. morning, sleeping in so late that my Beloved Sis almost got here before I was even up (and she had an hour and a half drive to get here!).  I saw the opening scenes as clearly as a movie.

Last night, I dreamed another scene, again, as clearly as though I watched a DVD.  That hasn’t happened since the early years, probably the very first terrible draft of Road.  What does it mean?  I have no idea, other than this book wants to be written.  Now, not later.  Not after careful character work.  NOW.

And the characters are speaking to me so vibrantly and loudly, it’s scary.  I already have Jesse’s static trait and it’s meaningful and perfectly explained by his past.  Vicki has already given me some terrific dialogue.  Elias just roared to life between one paragraph and the next.  I knew it was time for his POV, and BAM, there he was, shouting at the door, literally.  He calls her Vik, by the way, which I didn’t know until tonight.

Where they’re taking me, I don’t really know.  Oh, I know the romance angles and conflicts, but I have no idea what the external plot is.  Just a few vague ideas.  I don’t know how long the dreams will continue, but as long as they do, I’ll trust them.

They’ve given me over 4K in two writing sessions, and pages that have made me laugh and cringe at the same time.  Chapter One is touching on some rough real-life crap and I can only hope I’m doing it right.

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Approaching Vicki

Lying in bed yesterday, awake but still near to that hazy dream state, I worked through everything I knew about Vicki, Conn and Victor’s sister.  I’m pleased to announce that her heroes showed up.  I even have them cast in my mind now.

The big hole remains Vicki.  So here’s a few things I know about her and this book.

The first challenge I set for myself was to come up with a believable, modern-day story where the characters ended up happy in a long-term menage relationship.  All three of them.  I didn’t want this to be a one-night fantasy, a casual fling, or any other standard menage set up.  This part took forever to fall into place.  In my mind, I played through several different set ups, until I finally settled on this one.  The right one.  I think.  *winks*

Next, one of the heroes is inspired by someone else.  Someone I think got the short end of the stick.  He never got the care he deserved, allowed to evolve and become the kind of person he could have been.  I’m not going to say publically who or where this person came from, but if you guess and contact me privately, I may admit it.  Maybe.  Jesse (looks a bit like Casey James) is NOT this other person–he’s inspired by him.

Vicki has an existing friendship with Elias Reyes (played by Esai Morales), a police lieutenant working on a narcotics federal task force in Dallas.  They used to be on opposite sides of the court room, since Vicki was a defense attorney.  The money was nice, obviously, but she got burned out by the violence.  She found herself getting people off she knew were guilty, instead of truly helping people who were innocent and needed good representation.  Elias’s strong attraction and his dedication to justice, combined with burnout and a few really bad cases, led her to make a significant life change.

She quit practicing law to pursue a dream.  She opened up her own fashion line in Dallas.  [For the beta readers, that’s why Shiloh wears one of Vicki’s dresses to the final event.]  She’s doing this with her own money, but part of her feels like a failure.  She spent all these years going to college, working her way up to partner, gaining a prestigious career…only to quit.  She wonders what Daddy would say about it if he were still alive, and she hasn’t dared go home to see Mama.

She’s never had a comfortable relationship with Mama.  As the baby of the family, she was a daddy’s girl.  Her older brothers always took care of her.  She’s more like oil and water with Mama, who never sugar coats anything.  Don’t get me wrong–Vicki is not timid or afraid of Mama.  In fact, they’ve had so many rows, she decided it’s just easier to stay away. Despite their heated discussions, Vicki has a strong sense of family and would be miserable without them, so she stays in Dallas instead of heading for NY or LA, even if that means she won’t be as successful.

In looks, Vicki probably has dark hair and eyes to match Victor (Adrian Paul) or blue eyes like Conn (Clive Owen), but she could have taken more after Daddy (Sam Elliott) than Mama (Vivien Leigh).  After watching Constantine last night with my Beloved Sis, I’m thinking Vicki might be played by Rachel Weisz, but I’m open to other ideas.

P.S. Her real name isn’t Vicki.  It’s Beulah (Miss Belle) Virginia (Mama).  It’s sort of a family joke that she was cursed from the beginning with these names.  She chose to use Vicki (after her paternal grandmother, Victoria, where Victor got his name) instead.

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Gregar Meets Victor

Sherri and Nicole were yanking my chain about Victor in yesterday’s comments–spot on, by the way!!–which reminded me of this little piece I started and never finished…until last night.  You know I like to do that “Every character is the star of his own story” interview…

Finally!”  With a pleased smile, I hit the send button and another query went winging out into the internet.  Without the Maya synopsis like an albatross about my neck, I could finally get to work on a story that I’d been looking forward to for a very long time.  ”Gregar, ask Victor to come in.”

The Shadowed Blood sat down in the chair beside my desk.

“Where’s Victor?”

Gregar winked at me.  ”Here.”

After all these months slogging through Revision Xibalba, the last thing I wanted to do was sit around arguing with my mouthy Muse.  ”No, he’s not.”

“A little bit of me is in all your characters, but Victor is most like me.”

Gregar spoke slowly, as though I might not understand if he talked too fast.  Grrr.  Now I knew how Shannari felt when he and Rhaekhar began lecturing her on Sha’Kae al’Dan custom.  “You may be my Muse, but you’re not Victor.”

He arched a brow at me.  ”How do you know?”

“For one, this is a contemporary story, not a fantasy.  Victor isn’t an assassin, he doesn’t have waist-long hair, and he certainly doesn’t…”

My tirade stumbled to a halt, because before my very eyes, Gregar changed.  The red memsha about his hips disappeared–immediately, damn it, without a single flash of inappropriate flesh–replaced by a conservative suit.  With his sable hair pulled back tightly, his face was more angular.  Sharper.

But it was still Gregar, so I finished, “dream about killing the woman he loves.”

“How do you know?”  Even his voice sounded different.  A hint of Texas drawl began to blur his words, but his eyes…  His eyes were still Gregar’s, dark and full of Shadow.  ”You haven’t asked me any questions yet.”

“Look, just because I originally envisioned Adrian Paul playing both you and Victor’s role, that doesn’t mean I can stand to see you sitting here.  I keep waiting for you to bend over, flip up your memsha, and shout ‘kiss my arse!’”

“I did play college football.  I’m sure there was some mooning somewhere in my past.”

I made a rude noise that usually came out of his mouth.  ”Sorry, but Victor would never lower himself to such ridiculous behavior. He’s a businessman: calm, cool and collected.”

“Rather like your Shadowed Blood when he kills, yes?”

Damn it, Gregar wasn’t supposed to say “yes,” he was supposed to say “aye.”  This was all wrong.  My palms were sweaty, my heart pounded, and for some bizarre reason, I wanted to burst into tears.  I snapped, “nay!”
 
Ignoring me, he reached inside the black suit coat.  Like a magician, he pulled out something that shouldn’t have fit beneath the tight, sleek jacket.

Gregar would always carry an ivory rahke, but this man carried…a riding crop.
 
He held the wicked-looking implement on his lap and stroked the leather with his fingers.  His dark eyes burned.  Not cold like Gregar’s eyes when the Shadow of Death rode him hard.

How such black eyes could smolder…

In a low, rough voice he whispered, “I need to hurt somebody.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and opened up a new file.  “Hello, Victor.  Welcome to the page.”

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Refusing the Jump

Keeping up with my horse metaphor I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been struggling with something that very rarely bothers me. 

The urge to quit.

Not writing in general, but a specific story, namely my nice tight contemporary romance I want to write.  Oh, don’t get me wrong–the doubt monster always shows up at some point, typically in the dark moment of the story.  Yet I’ve barely even gotten this story off the ground and the rats are abandoning ship left and right.

I have pages and pages of notes, so I decided to at least get a partial written.  Then I can set it aside, think about the plot, and see how it’ll all stick together (or whether it’ll all stink to high heaven).  So many times I get an idea, jot notes frantically, and then the story goes cold.  Notes that meant something to me a month ago, suddenly make me suspect the monsters stole my journal and wrote in it instead of me. 

I decided to avoid that confusion by writing the synopsis first.  *laughs snorts falls over*  Yeah, you know how much we all love writing synopses.  Seriously, though, I almost always come up with a way to tighten the plot when I make myself concentrate on summarizing the key turning points of the story.  Plus, I’ll have all the internal/external conflicts documented and figured out, so that can only save me time, right?

Right.

So imagine a great big seven-foot Wall of white fencing, foot-thick bricks, and a treacherous ditch on the other side.  I keep trying to send my horse totem over that monstrous fence, and she shies away every single time.  She’s refusing the jump. 

Last night, I had at least three separate moments where I thought seriously about shelving this project.  FOREVER.  Like this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever written in my entire life, what was I thinking moments.  I don’t know if this idea in particular really does stink — or if this is just a by-product of my natural reluctance to build boundaries and limitations. 

I highly suspect the latter, so I continue to grind away on this synopsis.  It’s too long.  The characters are starting to feel flat and downright cheesy to me.  I did limit myself very much in possible markets by setting the story up this way, but I wanted to really make this a difficult challenge.  Oh, boy, I think I really outdid myself on enforcing all sorts rules on this one! 

I’m going to finish the @#&%*@ synopsis, and only then will I allow myself to set this project aside.  The exercise is important, even if I don’t intend to ever write this story all the way to the end.

I’m not going to let this horse refuse the jump.

Sometimes you don’t ride to win the race or take home a trophy.  Sometimes just clearing the jump that scares the beejesus out the horse–but she jumps for you anyway–is the greatest victory of all.

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Scattered

Since finishing the three big revisions in January, I’ve been scattered between multiple ideas this month.  I have tons of ideas, but nothing is concrete and firm enough for me to say YES, this is what I’m doing.  Just had another idea quiver for attention yesterday in church, based on the pastor’s sermon.  I don’t know if it’s a Christian thriller, or UF with angel/demon undertones, but it doesn’t matter anyway.  You know my track record trying to write “UF” or “thrillers.”  Sigh.  It has a really cool title, though.

And that’s my problem:  lack of focus.  Even my little tight romance I wanted to write isn’t quite right. I’m trying to write the synopsis to ensure I have a tight, cohesive story with enough conflict to carry it the length I was planning, and I got stuck.  Not a good sign.

So I’m reading.  Just finished Heart’s Blood by Gail Dayton this weekend.  Loved it even more than New Blood, although I really wanted to kick Grey in the head a few times.  Sorcery – blood magic – is totally up  my alley, you know, and I loved the Victorian/Steampunk feel of Gail’s world.

I’m also writing in my journal by hand, jotting ideas, filling notecards (had to open a second pack) with ideas, but I’m still flitting around like a butterfly.  Patience is hard for me.  I want to GO GO GO.  But I have to trust that when THE idea is in the right place at the right time, that it’ll take off.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep reading the partials I have and see if I can make any forward progress.

It may not look like it, but I am working very hard, I swear.  If I ever clean my desk, I’ll take a picture of my stack of notebooks, notecards, pencils, etc.

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Rest and Reward

So far, I’ve read Passion Unleashed and finished Skin Game (I’ve been reading it slowly on my iPhone), and I started Heart’s Blood.  I’ve been writing in my journal by hand.  Oh, I did sort of read through my Greek story (only have 1 chapter), and started reading through the SFR one, but hadn’t really gotten into either. 

Mostly, I’ve been enjoying the silence.

You know, that constant clamor in my head, story A warring with story B for attention, while Gregar is yammering away non-stop. 

It was mostly quiet, and I really was trying to simply turn off the stories for awhile.  I’ve been in the mood to listen to Phantom of the Opera, so that soundtrack has been playing since late last week.  And while listening to those powerful words in the semi-silence in my head, a puzzle piece fell into place for a story that I wasn’t even going to try and write.  (Because I couldn’t figure out the heart of the story, and if I don’t have the heart, why even try to write it?)

Sigh.  So much for vacation, right?  Because somehow, I’ve come out of two days with a new story to work on…

Ironically, its working title is HEARTFIRES.

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State of the Writing

January was a busy month of revisions.  I completed not one, not two, but three major revision passes on three different manuscripts.  All are now submitted and the waiting games begin.

Turning in Return to Shanhasson was a major milestone.  The first project I ever completed was Rose…and now that story is complete.  It’s an incredible feeling.  Of course, I’m not done with the Blood & Shadows world.  I have another Keldari novella I want to write, and I have notes and ideas jotted for both of Shannari’s daughters (although it’s been years since I touched them, so likely won’t be able to use much at all).

It’s time for a NEW story to take over.  Thanks to some of my decisions in January, I have two stories I want to write in the next few months.  One is a short and tight romance; the other is a longer, detailed kickoff to a world as big as the Blood & Shadows world.  Since it’s so large, I think I’ll try to get the short work done first, while I make notes and get organized in the SFR world.

That will be my main direction for first quarter of 2010.  Of course, I’m hoping to have new contracted works to announce, and that means revisions and promo and more giveaways.  We’ll just see how all that unfolds.  Right now, I have no scheduled release dates to announce, other than Dear Sir, I’m Yours coming in print April 1st.

Speaking of which, I’m in the building stage for Vicki’s story, Victor and Conn’s sister.  I’m hoping to write that book this year, if I can get her heroes to show up.

But first, I’m rewarding all my hard work since NaNo last year, and I’m going to wallow in reading.  First up, Larissa Ione’s  Passion Unleased and Ecstacy Unveiled, Gail Dayton’s Heart’s Blood, and hopefully Stephanie Tyler’s Hard to Hold.  I have so many other books on my TBR tower that I’m afraid to look, but for sure these are a few I’m hoping to read this month.

Don’t forget to vote for The Road to Shanhasson as the best book of 2009 here!

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Victor is Almost Ready…

One of the joys of having a dog that we can’t trust to last more than 8 hours without a mess is getting up before 8 AM on a Saturday with 6+ inches of snow on the ground so she can go potty.  The house was quiet another hour before the sleepy-head monsters got up (they were out of school yesterday and stayed up later than usual), so I worked frantically on Victor’s synopsis.

I already had several ideas jotted on notecards, but I hadn’t been able to piece them together in a coherent way yet.  Thankfully, the pieces fell together this morning and I’ve got both a blurb and synopsis (I typically do both at the same time) drafted that I really like.  I’ll let it sit another day or so — I can’t help but tweak here and tweak there, add a word, change this phrase. 

Sherrialready provided incredible feedback and gave me one little thread to mull over.  Writing the synopsis also helped me realize I needed to add a couple of paragraphs to the scene with Mama Connagher.  Otherwise, I think I’m *this close* to kicking Victor out the door. 

If you’re curious, this is the blurb I worked up this morning.  Does it make you want to buy it and read more?

Reluctant Dom Victor Connnagher has been hiding the truth for years: he’s the meanest sadist in Dallas. As the CEO of a risque cable channel, he supports the BDSM community but doesn’t trust himself to participate. Not after he hurt his submissive fiancee [changed per Nicole’s suggestion] so badly that she dumped him.

Saucy and confident despite being submissive, Shiloh Holmes needs pain and a man who’s not afraid to give it. She suspects her boss is a Master with a capital M, so she creates a BDSM reality show for his channel in order to gain his attention.

On America’s Next Top sub, Shiloh will prove once and for all that she can please Master V. In any way he wishes.