Ah, my precious peeps - I've been so bad lately. Neglecting you for other pursuits, leaving you to wile away the lonely hours and days with mindless drivel - other than my own mindless drivel which you, inexplicably, seem to find amusing.
I beg your forgiveness and offer no excuses. Well, maybe one or two.
It's been a bit of the usual chaotic churn around here - working on the edits for Book 1 of my Phasms trilogy, trying to get Book 2 written and of course, swatting that pesky MUSE who likes to carpet bomb my brain with new story ideas at the exact time I need to be focused on existing WIPs.
Yeah - my muse teamed up with Kat Daemon's muse (you can follow Kat on twitter HERE - and you really should, she's hilarious) and the raunchy Valkyrie's brought home all sorts of distractions like:
And this:
And lot's of this:
So - can you really blame me from being distracted? Trying to keep her out of trouble is a full time job. And I already have TWO of those! Yeah! The writing thing and the other one. The one that actually requires my concentration and pays the bills. The one that makes me feel like:
But Prue (that Valkyrie muse of mine) doesn't care. She's just a hedonistic little tramp, looking to cause trouble. She even tried cornering the Norse God of Winter, Ull Myhr, and his friend Gunnar. Check it out on twitter HERE. Thanks to her antics, I've been officially labelled one of his Twitter Tormentors. At this rate, he may not make it to the wedding!
But - overall - it's been a pretty good couple of weeks. Nothing to rant about (like AT&T) and nothing to go all Glee! songbird about (like Whiskey). Just a good, solid, end of summer.
So - what have you been up to? Did you do anything special to mark the end of the season? Does it feel like fall where you are? Are your WIPS and other projects moving along?
To wrap things up, here's a little Sunday toonage to help your day. This song just makes my fingers twitch, ready to pound out some major WERDS!
Seriously... so much going on, so much to do! I am absolutely overwhelmed by my life right now. Well, okay, not so much...but it's still so freaking exciting!
The whole book thing? Yeah, like KAPOW! I've had so many welcoming emails from my fellow Entranced authors (we call ourselves "Entrancies"!) and the entire staff - it's like going to a new school and finding yourself in the middle of the BEST group of people evah!!!
My editor, the amazing Tiffany Johnson, is working on the first round of content edits for Book 1 of the PHASMS series. I can't wait to see how bad I suck - gulp. Hopefully not too bad, but we'll see. I'm also about 20% into book 2 of the series, and have the outline for book 3 completed as well. If all goes according to schedule, book 1 will be out March/April of 2014, book 2 around October of 2014 and book 3 in the spring of 2015. SO exciting!
I've completed my cover design questionnaire for the first book - that was a blast to fill out and think about. I doubt I'm the only author who has visions in their heads of what they want their covers to look like...and the Entranced artists do an amazing job! Stop by their website and see for yourself (click here).
I've also completed an "author" questionnaire, prepared a bio and started thinking about things like book tours and signing events and blog tours and cover reveals and media releases and OMG so many things I didn't even think about before!!! So excuse me if I'm a little spastic these days.
Also huge on the "Things To Do" list were Author Photographs. You know, the little glimpse of me on the back cover or in the end notes??? The Man Behind The Curtain and I spent time last night in San Diego's Little Italy with the amazing Kate Mills of "Chasing Daylight" photography getting the pictures done. Kate is fantastic, with a beautiful portfolio and just a blast to work with. She has infectious energy and a personality that keeps you smiling until your cheeks hurt. Her eye for contrast, background, setting and light is UH-MAZ-ING! I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out. I may even post my favorites here and let you pick which one I use...that would be fun, wouldn't it?
I'm also going out on Saturday with my friend CP to do more pics. These will be totally different - looking some industrial, gritty images. We hope to be shooting at a shipyard (what can I say - it's where it all started), some cool and extremely San Diego images and a cemetery. Yes - a cemetery. Why? Well, you'll just have to read my books and find out, right?
Also coming up - I've joined the FANTASTIC Masquerade Crewto do book reviews - here's my bio and more information than you ever wanted to know (wink, wink)! This is a fun opportunity for me to help other authors and because I read SO MUCH and so widely, I'm a good fit for this fun group.
Wow - I know I'm missing some really big news, but that's all I can think of for now. Keep checking back, as the fun has just begun!!!
I need a hug - really. I'm so torn up about the revisions to my first book, I'm ready to flush the whole damn thing. I think it's a good story - I've been told it's a good story, but I just can't seem to do anything with it. I know the changes I need to make, but it's gotten where the whole damn thing just irritates the crap out of me.
It's not the rejections - I can deal with those. It's the fact that I've lost the voice, the feel for the main character and I can't seem to get it back. I feel all:
whenever I start working on it again.
I realize this is a common affliction amongst the IWG. In fact, it's pretty common among all us writerly type people. I read a blog post the other day by FizzyGirl(aka Summer) that pretty well summed up the whole experience. You should read it - it really defines how I'm feeling. Yes, click on the bright red "FizzyGirl" above.
So, what I've decided to do is just put that first book aside for a while. The second book is out at a few agents and publishers, and I'm going to send it to a bunch more this weekend, which will at least make me feel semi-productive. And I'm going to work on the my other two WIPs - they are totally different from each other, as well as my earlier books, and they're a lot more fun to write as well.
They have unique voices that I really relate to (lot's of drinking and cussing in one, lot's of crazy, unbounded imaginative shit in the other) and they make me smile when I read them or work on them.
But first, I'm heading over to FizzyGirl's for a snergle.
I really wish I had sufficient PC skills to attach Robin Williams voice to that sentence, ala Good Morning Vietnam...
Yes, I know. It's shocking, it's 6 o'clock in the morning and I'm vertical, semi-dressed and almost in a good mood. Please, enjoy it while it lasts - it's like a cloud on a hot, dry day: it can disappear at any moment.
But while it's here, let me tell you that this week has been exceptional. Ex-Cep-Shun-All! A bit like...
Hmmm - senese a theme going on here? Might have been the gaggle of Marines that were hanging out in front of my office yesterday. Yes, God gifted me with Marines. Ooodles of them. They were scrumptious, yummy even! Tasty, like savory cupcakes without too much sweet frosting. MMMM, mmm, mmm.
Aw, there I go digressing again.
So, you ask, why was last week all "Good Morning, Vietnam," besides the fact it's one of my favorite movies of all time? Well, because it was a bit of good and bad, bitter and sweet.
First, work was tough. Really tough. I can't go into specifics cuz I need to keep my job until I sell millions of books and become rich, but it just was. Stupid problems that should never have occurred, abject failure to follow policy and a lot of whining and complaining. And that was just on the government side - let's not even get into the contractors!
But, writing was good. My muse, the Valkyrie, must have swallowed mushrooms or got laid or something. She was soaring all week, higher and higher, bringing back the good stardust and sprinkling on my head and hands. She was generous and effusive and before I knew it I had 26 pages of a new novel safely tucked away, another 13 pages on the almost new story, 40 pages of the first novel revised and a 4,000 word short story completed.
"Wait," you ask, "What do you mean a 'New Novel'? Weren't you already working on a new novel? And what's this 'almost new story'?"
Well, that's why I'm going all Adrian Cronauer on you... Let me try to explain.
1) Book One: I finished it around the first of the year, shopped it around, got some nibbles, got a request for full, got turned down, sent it to my friend and author Justine and got four pages of tiny, tiny font feedback so I could go fix it. Which is what I'm doing now and I'm about a third of the way.
2) Then came Book Two: I finished it a couple months ago, didn't shop it around, was working on revisions to it with my critique partner CP, stupidly entered PitMad on Twitter, got a request for partial, got a request for full, made CP madly finish her critique, dashed off all the corrections and sent it in. And am waiting for results. And went ahead and submitted to a few other folks cuz why the hell not, I'm a writer, that's what we do.
3) Short Story One: dashed off after dashing around the block with the dog one day. Submitted to about a dozen magazines, turned down by all but three, those three still pending. If they decline, I promise to publish here.
4) New story one, or "almost new story" was an idea I wanted to explore in a voice I hadn't used before. Girl after my own heart with much tequila, surfing, sex and general fun. The Pro-tag cusses like a sailor (gee, go figure) and eats like a teenage boy. She's smart, stubborn, OCD and will make you snort coffee out your nose. Yup. She's me - back in the day. Story was coming nicely and I new where it was going to go as well. Probably about 10% written.
5) Short Story Two: I'd been turning this around in my head since March, unsure how to actually get it started, but it finally found it's way out and I've sub'd to a small handful of magazine's to see if they are interested. It's pretty weird, which means it's pretty authentically me. It's not all snergly and there's almost no cussing, but it's still pretty "me."
Then along came New Story. THE story. It started with a single, completely out of context line as I was laying in bed the other night. I mean, the sentence could have gone anywhere, or nowhere. But between thinking it as I dozed off and waking up the next morning, the story had formed and was just dying to escape. I wrote the first chapter during lunch at work that day. And it kept coming. It's still clamoring at the tips of my fingers, begging to get out. It's AMAZING too! ROAR!
I can't wait to sub it out, 'cuz I have confidence this one is going places. And it's so damn fun to write - I even get to make up words and lot's of other cool things. I can't tell you much, but it's a mash-up of genres and the feedback so far is GOOD! This is the one that had me crawling out of bed three times last night to add a line here, a paragraph there. I finally decided to just leave the damn computer on so I wouldn't have to wait for it, thereby risking the precious WERDS that were trying to make it out of my head.
So, there you go. That's the sort of week it takes to make me feel this way. Not so hard to understand, right? I think, with that, I'm gonna take The Terrorist for a walk, so I can get back to writing.
Peace out, Ya'll! Here's your Saturday Tunes - make it a good one!
Have I told you how much I dislike mornings? I would say "hate," but being a hater is on my list of things deemed socially unacceptable. Yes, I have a list. My husband updates it for me on a regular basis. I'm not the most socially adept person out there. Guess that's why I write.
So, mornings - yeah. One of the reasons I don't hate them is 'cuz I figure any day on the right side of the grass is a good day. One of the reasons I do hate them is 'cuz it takes me about 3 cups of coffee before I'm sure I won't bite the heads of small dogs and children.
I am the definition of "Not A Morning Person."
Well, except for one particular activity - which I have to say is always best in the morning. But don't make any mistakes; this is NOT me int he morning (or anytime, for that matter):
If you've been reading along, which I KNOW you have because you love me and find me totally awesome in all my drunken drivel, then you know I was supposed to start driving in to work even earlier then the totally FAAAACKING insane hour my job requires.
I was going to go straight to work, thereby avoiding all the traffic in the morning and go for a run. We have showers at work. We have coffee at work (if you want to call it that). We have no traffic at 0400 in the morning at work.
Right? What the hell was I thinking? I haven't made it yet. I tried, but my ass was so firmly glued in bed all week, it was NOT happening. I'm sure it was pretty funny to watch as I shoved my work out clothes on to the closet floor and hit the snooze button. Several times. Because...
FAAAAACK. Oh, said that already. Sorry - still on that first cup of coffee.
I do actually plan on trying again this coming week. Hopefully things will fare better and I have a little less stress on the writing front. Speaking of which, here's where things stand:
First Book - received four pages (in minus 16 font) of questions, comments and revisions from an esteemed colleague that I am trying to incorporate. I'm about a third of the way through on that.
Second Book - thanks to the considerable effort and talents of CP, book 2 has been sent to the industry professional who requested it. Cross your fingers!
Short Story 1 - no takers yet. I have three more submissions pending and if they don't pick it up, I will *as promised* publish here.
Short Story 2 - yes, there is a short story 2. I just wrote it the other day. Needs some polish - and I'm sending it to CP so she can rip it to shreds (she's good at that, she's like a Komodo dragon on word steroids or something), then I'll shop it around.
I have a third story I'm dying to get to - got a few pages down so I can keep the *feels* before I get the chance to work on it. It's going to be fun, too - a real ball-busting riot, so I can't wait to go to work. I'll probably play with it later on today. After I've had more coffee. And some Scotch.
Meanwhile, The Terrorist is growling and fanning me with his tail, which means he either needs coffee or a walk. So, that's it for now.
Oh, except for Saturday Faves! Happy day - I'm going to hook up the caffeine I.V.!!!
So, first of all, not only did I totally crap out on you and not post yesterday; I crapped out on the Insecure Writers Group as well. See, at least you're in good company!
Mea Culpa.
Yesterday was just one of those days when I couldn't find my ass with two hands and a flashlight. Yes, I know, an object that big should have landing lights, but they wouldn't have helped either. It was just one of those days - and it kept getting better.
In fact, the last thing I did yesterday (before crawling into a corner with my bottle and a pillow) was absolutely the worst and the funniest - I guess it got all the stupid out of me, because today was sooo much better. Not really, but that's another story. At least it wasn't as bad.
So, about last night: I met my Critique Partner, CP; for dinner. Nothing out of the norm there. We were talking about different things and somehow we started talking about sex scenes. See, my current WIP doesn't have one. Nary a pube in sight. HOWEVER, my last book has what I would deem an awesome, totally 'wait for the significant other to go to bed or read it in the bathroom' sex scene. So she demanded insisted asked I send it to her as soon as I got home. And I did.
I cut and pasted it right into an email and sent it straight to her. At her work account. With the Government. Doing highfalutin, extra secret spy stuff. With a sex scene in her inbox. Bwah ha ha!
She did NOT finding it amusing. Well, she sort of did. I re-sent it right away to her home account. Thank god there are no anatomically correct body parts listed in the entire scene. Except 'breast.' And 'butt.' And to think, I almost put "porn" as the subject line. THAT would have been freakin' hilarious!
Ahem. CP did not find that part amusing. At All. She did, however, greatly enjoy the scene itself, which she took a helluva long time reading. In the bathroom. While her husband slept. And then emailed me this picture:
So, I'm guessing she liked what she read. But I digress. Not really, but I like saying that: "I (pause for affect) digress!"
Where was I? Oh, yeah: what I'm saying is, even if I'd had the time (which I didn't, unless I skipped that first double-Scotch. Like that's ever going to happen) I didn't have any ideas for the blog post due yesterday.
And today, as a comment left on yesterday's completely unsatisfactory "hey, I'm screwing you out of your Wednesday reading material" post, Kelly at dysfunctionallyfungives me the Whore Award (see it, in the upper right corner? Awesome, right?) and the following visual prompt:
Now, what the hell am I supposed to write using that? I could go so many directions with this, none of them rated "G"! I'm gonna have to take a couple days to wrap my brain around this one (get it: corkscrew, round-wrapping rollee coastee picture and brain?). So, no. You still aren't getting THAT post. Check back Saturday. I should either be drunk enough Friday night or hungover enough Saturday morning to make something of it. Evil bitch from the depths of hell.
Crap - did I write that out loud?
Now, on to the award, which is so totally awesome, even though I could never get my made-for-supporting-bridges-and-tunnels legs into them.
Dum Dum DUMMMMM: The Whore It Up Award
Yes, there are rules. Even whores have scruples or guidelines or something. Don't worry, I checked with the muse (that slatternly slut) and she says they're cool:
Rules:
Upon receiving this award, you will receive a prompt. You are to write about said prompt. (Whenever you feel like it)
Link back to who gave you this award and include the picture of the award in your post.
Pass it to just five bloggers. (You can tag back if you want to read what your presenter has to say about the topic you come up with.)
Come up with a prompt for the five bloggers you chose.
When you do finally get around to writing the prompt, let the blogger who presented you this award know. So they can read it.
Now, for my victims awardees: 1. My CP, CP at n00bishdelight - cuz she's my bud and she's into Zombies and shit! 2. Stacey at maplesyrupland - because she's smart, funny and likes has plays with balls 3. Sporkchop at roflinitiative - I thought it would be hilarious to see a guy in these boots - maybe with something else on but not necessarily, and he posts some weird shit I really like. 4. Valerie at flyingplatypi - hey, anyone that licks anything like she does DESERVES these boots! Git yer mind out of the gutter and read her blog, damn you! 5. Summer at fizzygrrl - cuz since I started following her on Twitter, my life hasn't been the same. In a good way. Unless you have an issue with snorting coffee out your nose. And here's your prompt: You just swallowed the most potent aphrodisiac known to womankind (no, it was not an American Express Centurion card). It lasts 72 hours MINIMUM. You are trapped in a room at the North Pole, with one other person. There is no hope of rescue, no place to hide. It's one big room. What happens?
Well, I know - I'm supposed to be writing about something this morning. I thought I had a topic lined up last night, but the Valkyrie (aka: my muse) got pissed and chased it away. So: Crap. What to write about. Here I sit, broken hearted. Tried to write, couldn't get started. Hah! Not what you expected, was it? Yeah - I try stupid stuff sometimes to get things flowing. Actually, my entire second manuscript started by thinking (and echoing in words) that annoying habit of hitting the same key on a piano over and over, with a half-second pause in between. Yeah - I started it like this: One... Two... One... Two...
And before I knew it, I was off to the races. It always intrigues me, the things that get our writing glands juiced up and ready for keyboard kombat... I frequently ask other writers how they came up with an idea, what made them start, how did they get the first few sentences on paper. We all have different methods and means, but in the end, it comes down to just sitting your ass in a chair and WRITING. If I were going to be completely honest (which I am, to a fault and without much tact), the actual verbal vomit part comes easy. Once I get going, once I pick up the trail my muse has left me, I can ramble on for hundreds, thousands of words. Part of it may be for total shit, part of it may only make sense to a crack smoking toad, but part of it will always be worth keeping. It's the space between the words that matters - the thoughts and images and questions drawn out by whatever I spewed like... Well, the only 'spew' analogies I can think of are too gross and disgusting for this early on a Saturday morning. Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't. The point is, it gets me writing SOMETHING. Which beats staring at a blank screen.
Why yes, this is a little gratuitous Depp action. What the fuck is wrong with that?
So, something I write may start like this:
"When Donny left, it was pretty much expected that Andie would fall apart. Really, really fall apart. They’d been together since college. Almost four years. They were talking about getting married. At least, she was talking about it. He would just listen, nodding his head while studiously not commenting. So when he left, when he packed his things while she was at work and moved out without even leaving a note; she went a little nuts."
And before long (but with several edits) becomes this:
"It’s the little things in life that make the biggest difference. Being five-minutes late for the job interview. Missing the other guy’s car by two inches. A quarter teaspoon too much salt in the soup. Big things are easier to detect, easier to plan for. Easier to accept.
It’s the overwhelming force of the larger events that makes them more recognizable. You know something big is going to or has happened, so you allow yourself the time and the space to cope with them. But the little things? No freakin’ way. They just pile up, like grains of rice or flakes of snow, until the whole thing breaks lose and tears up your life as it plummets down the slope.
So, when Donny left, it was pretty much expected that Andie would fall apart. Really, really fall apart. They’d been together since college. Almost four years. They were talking about getting married. At least, she was talking about it. He would just listen, nodding his head while studiously not commenting. So when he left, when he packed his things while she was at work and moved out without even leaving a note; she went a little nuts.
She pulled the few things he left into a pile in the back yard, added all the pictures and mementos of their time together, dumped the oil from one of the Tiki torches on top and threw the match. She danced the shandy around the blaze, tipping back the bottle of Fireball until she was good and drunk, then passed out on the grass as the embers blew softly all around her.
Yeah. She was pissed."
See how that works? You start with the tiniest, most obscure thread. You embellish, adding, subtracting, playing around with placement, tense, voice and other 'craft' tools and before you know it, you have a whole new story in the works! And as eager as I am to watch Johnny Depp, or Christian Bale or drink Scotch and dream about Johnny Depp or Christian Bale; I'm a writer. I gots to write. I get real bitchy when I don't. And my muse get's all pouty. Trust me - that's not a pretty sight!
Oh, and by the way, on my search for the perfect gifs for this post, I was horribly maimed and assaulted by A FULL PAGE OF TAYLOR FUCKING SWIFT gifs! GUH - my eyes! My eyes! They're burning!!!!
Have you had to do research for something you're writing? I mean, aside from school or some sort of work related task? How did you go about it? Where did you draw your information? How did you cite it? Did you create a bibliography, using parenthetical notation or some other methodology? Did you even credit to your sources?
I have an ongoing research project for a trilogy I'm working on. I've used Wikipedia, but mainly as a source for articles, journals and books to reference. I've used Google-Maps to print large scale and detailed closeups of the area where a significant portion of the story occurs. I've also downloaded hundreds of pictures of the terrain, flora, fauna and architecture so I can accurately describe the region.
I used the local library to find countless reference books and more journal articles, copying, transcribing and committing to memory the parts I needed. And I have sorely abused my husbands trust in our financial management by ordering book after book after book from Amazon.
And here's what I learned: research can do funny things to the book you think you're writing. I started off with a very clear vision in my head, but the more I researched and made notes, the more the story grew and expanded. The more I thought I cleared plot lines, the more I realized I had to go back and perform MORE research.
Things like not being able to accurately depict how a soldier would act in a specific situation when it's abundantly clear how much society has changed in the past hundred years. It's impossible for someone from our generation to really understand the psyche of a soldier from World War I or even World War II. We are a different country, a different people, a different world.
I didn't realize this until I read the following:
"The hard truth was that human beings had never been slaughtered in such numbers or so rapidly as in this hideous war. Nor with less to show for it. The machine gun, automatic rifles, massed artillery, poison gas, flamethrowers, the airplane, and the tank made a mockery of old-style textbook stratagems and old-style battlefield heroics."
(McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
The reading of this one paragraph changed my outlook on the entire book and sent me digging for my reference material. Because I got IT. That mysterious IT that makes us want to write something meaningful, something prosaic and greater than ourselves. The IT that makes us want to dig deeper, work harder, longer, more fervently than we have before. IT. The argument. The SOURCE of our inspiration.
I finally realized, research has a means beyond our immediate goals. It transcends the basic need to flush out dialogue, scenery, time, place, etc. It becomes more than the background - it becomes the heart, soul and body of many of our stories. Not all, certainly. Not every story. But for me, it became so much more than my original concept. So much more than I had dreamed of. It became it's own story, and I'm simply the device transcribing it for the masses.
Research. It does some interesting things to your head - and your plot line!
Yesterday, as part of the A to Z blog challenge; I purposely skipped the letter "E" and went straight to "F" - and no one noticed. At least, no one said that they noticed. I even tweeted about it, with zero comments.
So, either no-one's reading or no one thought enough about it to say anything. Maybe you thought I had a temporary break from usual pedantic logical self. Not too far fetched, if you really know me, but not the case.
Maybe you found my Fabulous Friday of Musical Fare more entertaining - also unlikely. My Blogger Dashboard shows plenty of traffic yesterday. My Twitter Feed indicates some of you really do read my blather. So what gives?
I can only think you found other fodder on the blogosphere more tempting and comment worthy. And that's OK! I pulled my alphabetical slight of hand for effect, not for numbers and feedback. Because really, as writers, words and punctuation are the only means we have to deliver effect.
I worked with a critique partner a little while ago who didn't get my use of either - I had to drop her eventually. I have my own style, my own means of pacing both the scene and the story, and she was a grammar/punctuation virtuoso who could not cope with my purposeful warping of style. Don't get me wrong, she was very nice, very intelligent. I did garner some excellent feedback from her, but she absolutely could not comprehend why someone would voluntarily bend or break the laws of grammar.
Here's an example. This is a paragraph from my latest WIP, as I wrote it:
I grab the trash can and start emptying the guac into it. It sticks to the bowl, congealed. Solid. I bang it against the side of the can, but it won’t come out. I throw the entire bowl in the trash. I grab the tuna casserole, look at the glass dish it came in and throw it in the trash on top of the guacamole. I grab the mac and cheese, the salad, the soup and the pie and the jam and the mayonnaise and I throw it all in the trash.
I hear glass breaking and I’ve missed the can and I’m standing in a pile of broken glass and food and bits of foil and plastic wrap and I’m throwing everything in the trash and the tea kettle’s whistling and I can’t stop yelling, screaming, cursing, calling him names and swearing at him and asking him why? Why did he leave me? Where did he go? Why couldn’t he take me with him? How could he leave me? How could he go away and leave me? Why can’t he come back? What do I do now? What the hell am I supposed to do now? How could he do this? How could he be so fucking selfish? I hate him! I hate him! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care if I never see him again. Where is he? Where is he? Oh God, I need him and he’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.
Hopefully, at this point your stomach is clenched, your breathing a little faster and you are seriously emoting with the main character.
Now, here is the same paragraph, as she corrected it:
I grab the trash can and start emptying the guacamole. It sticks to the bowl, congealed and solid. I bang the bowl against the side of the can, but it won’t loosen. I throw the bowl in the trash. I pick up the tuna casserole looking at the glass dish it came in. I throw it, too in the trash, on top of the guacamole. I grab the mac and cheese and the salad, then the soup and the pie and finally the jam and the mayonnaise, throwing all in the trash with the other items.
I hear the sound of glass breaking. I’ve missed the can and now I’m standing in a pile of broken glass. Food and bits of foil and plastic wrap lie all around me. I was throwing everything in the trash and the tea kettle started whistling. I couldn't stop yelling. I was screaming and cursing. I was calling Jamie names and swearing at him. I was asking him why he left me? Asking where he went and why couldn’t I go with him?
I wanted to know how he could have left me and why he couldn't return to me. I kept asking what I should do now? I hated him at this moment. I didn't care that I would never see him again, but at the same moment I knew all I wanted was to see him again.
A little flat, right? I mean, not horribly - you still get the intent and the drama, but you lose that emotional gut-check on her sanitized version. And at this point in the story, I need you to have that feeling. I need you to be completely absorbed in the main character's emotions. The story doesn't work without it.
This is the difference when you write for effect - when you consciously choose specific grammar, syntax and punctuation to create the emotional mood or element the story needs.
In this case, I needed the reader to connect to the main character, to understand the raw power and conflicting emotions that terrible loss can bring to bear. Cleaning up the spelling and adding proper style elements doesn't get us there. We have to write for effect. All. The. Time.
I've been on an endless search for Beta Readers for my current Work In Progress (WIP).
You know, those elusive, eccentric, intelligent folks willing to read your latest WIP and give honest, constructive feedback? I believe, at this stage, they are harder to find than unicorns and white lions.
I have a few - friends and co-workers who actually don't think everything I put on paper is wonderful. They challange plot points, character reactions and dialogue and story archs. They have no fear confronting why I put a character in a given circumstance, how that character reacts to it and even the language they use to describe their reaction.
Yes, I'm lucky. They are good and evil, wrapped up in a convenient package of honesty, good vocabulary and a semi-rabid hunger for the written word. I'd be lost without them. They've made almost everything I've written better, because of their feedback.
So here's the problem: none of them are in love with the genre I'm currently working in. My current WIP is a romance, and granted my three top Beta's love them a good romance. But this is a Paranormal Romance. It's that P word that has them a little stand-offish. I guess I can appreciate that. And I know they'll read it for me, as long as the romance part is strong enough. But I'm still left with the need for feedback on the Para Parts.
So tell me, fellow readers and writers; where do you search for Beta Readers? What sort of feedback are you looking for from them? How succesful have you been and how much of their input do you incorporate?
Back tomorrow with more for the "A to Z" blog challange! I look forward to your comments and promise to answer every one of them!
