Back in the Saddle

Life has this tendency to happen, and while it's happening my character's take a back seat.  So I am mounting up this month to attempt to crunch out the rest of Sanguine...although I must admit that I am being tempted to work on Dragon Knight as my main character has been calling to me to get her out of the jam I left her in a few month's ago.  BITCH is gonna have to wait!!!  I refuse to be side tracked by an uppity knight and quirky demon side-kick. 

So with my best John Wayne walk and my Clint Eastwood snarl I set out to tackle a few unruly characters and WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

Late Night Muse

My muse is a night owl.  She doesn't understand yet that I have a seven year old daughter who has to get up at 5:30 in the morning and requires her mother to instruct her to brush her teeth and remember to wear her shoes on the correct feet.  So why does she always visit after the sun goes down? 

The moon is high in the sky and I've been struggling to write a sentence that doesn't sound like a hillbillies shopping list when BAM inspiration.  Now pages are flowing, dialog is snappy and witty.  I feel confident!  But it is 12:30...1:00...1:34...2:00 am and my eyes are barely staying open.

The author in me says grab a red bull and some tape for my drooping eyelids and keep writing!  The mom in me is loathing the author as I will most likely hate pulling back the covers at 5 am and clawing my way awake.

So dear late night muse, thank you but can't we make an earlier appointment?  

Disclaimer

Dear Readers:

I recently received a suggestion from a reader that I'm frankly stunned by so I thought I would explain a few things to individuals that may attempt to read my fiction.

First, let me address the opinion.  (Of which everyone is fully entitled to whether I agree with it or not. This is my last attempt at a PC overtone here.)  It was said I shouldn't use the phrase "break her pretty little neck" as it was sexist and condescending.

If that phrase shocked and appalled for goodness sake don't read further!  My fiction is not for you!

It is this writer's humble opinion that writing should be shocking.  It should rattle cages and test the limits of the day to day.  A great novel should shock, awe, make you angry, make you weep, inspire you to laughter and in general leave you breathless when you read the last page. 

I don't want my character's to be mundane.  I want them to be as varied and flawed as the people I want to read my fiction. 

I don't feel any topic is off limits.  My characters range from straight to gay, sexist to feminist, cowardly to brave and everywhere in between.  They are sometimes shining lights in a dark world and other times flawed broken souls looking for a way back.  Either way they wish to be heard. 

Books should open your mind and transport you to a place perhaps you will never see beyond the author's imagination.  I have a voice.  I will use it.  Within my pages I will curse and blaspheme, murder and pillage, love and rejoice, cry and despair and perhaps you will feel all of those things.  What I will not do is tread softly. 

I love you all.  I respect your voice.  Don't be afraid, use it.

Word Count

So every author has to worry about a word count.  Did I write enough today?  Will I meet my deadline?  I don't have deadlines and I assuredly never write enough in a day.  Between time constraints with family and work I'm lucky if I get an hour a night to actually sit down and write.  When I do I tend to falter back and forth between should I edit or should I write.  Most of the time I lean to editing which takes longer than the actual writing for me. The days that I do write I just let the words flow.

When I do write, those are the days!  Let me tell ya, I can write three or four chapters easily in a day.  I always feel most accomplished on those inspired sunny afternoons.  As if I've purged everything in my head onto the paper and when I go back to edit it I will adore the veritable brilliance of my prose.

Yet this is never the case.  When I reread the self loathing settles around me and my inspirational prose that I loved three days before looks a great deal like word vomit. 

I wonder if I'm the only one this happens too?

Red Shirts

So I was pondering in the shower yesterday, (Oh please, as a mother and wife sometimes it's the only damn place quiet enough to ponder anything more poignant than my navel.) when it occurred to me that I write heroines and fabulous stories because I'm not so sure put in the same situations that I wouldn't be the "red shirt" for a lack of a better phrase.

We all know the term from Star-Trek.  He's the guy in the red shirt with the main cast that will inevitably be eaten by the monster, because lets face it he's just not the hero.  He won't rise to the occasion and face down the dastardly extraterrestrial.  We won't pay attention to the fact Scotty called him Steve.  Hell we don't even care that he has a name.  More than likely the only reason he will save anyone is he will give the main cast the time they need to get away while the alien chomps away at his tasty bits.

Which brings me back to my deep thoughts shower moment.  I really was wondering am I the red shirt?  Sadly, as much as I'd like to say HELL NO in all reality, lets face it, more than likely.  I don't really see myself as the hot heroine that tames a wild vampire.  Nope, I'm the idiot who gets eaten in chapter three as filler.

So there it is the stark reality of the situation.  Lets face it there's more of us "red shirts" out there than Heroes, more lambs than lions.  Maybe that's why they say the meek shall inherit the earth.  Our sheer numbers alone are staggering.

I'd share more of my shower pondering with you, but to be completely honest it wasn't as interesting.  I think I made a mental note of a few bills, ran some dialogue for my new book through my head, and had at least one good sexual thought before turning off the water.

So which are you?  Red Shirt or Hero...Be Honest. 

 

Promises of More

So it's been a few days and I've actually spent a good deal of it writing.  I've added a new prologue to my paranormal kind of romance.  I've embraced the new idea and updated chapter's one and two so they coincide with the new theme and I've even written most of chapter three.  So productive week.

I can hear my characters cheering in the background, sighing in relief that I'm not a total loss.  I don't know if I appreciate their sarcasm, but I accept their mockery for what it is.  A wake up call to listen to myself.

I promise to put more up in the blog.  I'm going to add a page that has a few of my short stories to read and maybe put up a teaser for the new book I'm working on.

So stay tuned... 

Inspirational Curse

Sitting at my desk, at my day job, where I wonder if this is what Clark Kent feels like, cursed to the mundane Daily Planet, but secretly knowing at anytime he can burst out into SUPERMAN!  Who lets face it most people like more anyway. 

So...as I was saying...chewing my pencil feeling less inclined to enter data and more inclined to day dream INSPIRATION hit me like a wet washcloth in the face.  Sometimes, while welcome, inspiration can feel like that.  More of a curse than a joy.

I've been writing a paranormal romance.  I'm five chapters and a prologue in.  I love the characters, but to be honest I struggle.  I wonder if I'm hallucinating them arching an eyebrow when I write dialog as if they are saying, "REALLY? You want me to say that?" 

I won't tell you about the internal battles I have with my characters, but they all have a voice of their own and they haven't been happy voices lately.  So I gave them a break. 

Now today VOILA breakthrough!  I have a solid idea and it's what has been missing all along.  A voice that wasn't there before.  All the character's perk up in my head.  One seems to say, "Hallelujah!  She's not a moron."

"HEY!!!"

They're right to feel like that; all of them languishing in a state of indignant trite fluff.

So tonight I do the unthinkable, I rewrite!!! 

Wish me luck...pity me...hope they don't eat me alive.