The Big Bad & Writing Snags

I've hit a snag in my current w.i.p.

To compensate and not fall into a depressed spiral, I've just been chugging through books like boxes of Yoo-hoo (can you tell what I'm craving?). I took a mental break this weekend to re-charge, and get the next couple of books I want to read in order, and during that time I had a pow-wow with my muses about writing Leonard Kaine (LK).

I had hit a similar snag when getting into the meat of the writing for Wandering Shadow (WS). Ultimately, despite loving the characters, I decided I wasn't ready yet to write Wandering Shadow and I must need to work on something else. Hence LK.

But now I've hit the same snags - love the characters, love the world, can't seem to motivate myself to write what they're going through.

On one level, I think it's that I'm impatient. Leonard Kaine is essentially an origin story, and I want the intros to be over and done with and all the characters to be just out doing their thing. Not possible.

This is what hit me with WS.

But I also thing, with LK, it's the Big Bad. The villain. I know that he's there, and that Len and friends beat him up, but that's it.

What's the Big Bad's backstory? What's his motivations? What little hints can I drop about him along the way? And most importantly, what's his name?

It's strange. With my first two novels, I didn't need mega specifics to get me through. It was enough to have a line of big scenes to work towards. All the minor (or even not so minor) other details unrolled themselves for me as I walked towards those check-points. Sure, sometimes it was annoying, and I was impatient, and sometimes I missed a deadline or two while I worked out a particular snag, but I felt compelled to work through those because they were illuminating and awesome and they introduced things I hadn't even realized yet.

I need this for LK. I need to recapture that compelling feeling that this isn't just another book and I'm hoping learning more about Mr. Big Bad will help... this is Leonard Kaine, one of my books, filled with my characters, and it will rock if I let it. Pep-talk over. Time to write.

WWW Wednesday #1

WWW Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by @shouldbereading. To join in all you have to do is answer the three following questions:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish?
• What do you think you'll read next?

Since I'm reading more this seemed like a lovely meme to follow. Below are my answers. Feel free to leave comments below, or link to your own WWW Wednesday post. I'm always looking for more awesome book suggestions.

What I Recently Finished:

Photo from Amazon.

Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

(Book #2 in the Divergent trilogy)

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love."

Loved it! It was an action-packed, tense sequel to Roth's first book, Divergent. I don't want to give away too many spoilers... Tris has a lot of new problems to deal with, and some old. Her relationship issues felt very real, and unforced. And the ending leaves me agonized that I'll have to wait a year or two for Book 3.

What I'm Reading Now:

Photo from Amazon.

A Perfect Evil, by Alex Kava

(Book #1 in the Maggie O'Dell series)

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"The brutal murders of three young boys paralyze the citizens of Platte City, Nebraska. What's worse is the grim realization that the man recently executed for the crimes was a copycat. When Sheriff Nick Morrelli is called to the scene of another grisly murder, it becomes clear that the real predator is still at large, waiting to kill again."

This is a bit of a cheat, since I actually finished this last night. But I haven't started anything new yet. I enjoyed the book, but I sometimes felt the level of description was overused. It also jumps between many POVs - but they all say (more-or-less) the same things about one another. The plot was engaging, especially further in when more starts happening. I'm in no rush to read the sequel.

What I Think I'll Read Next:

Photo from Amazon.

Five Flavors of Dumb, by Antony John

BLURB FROM AMAZON:

"Piper is a seventeen-year-old high school senior, and she's just been challenged to get her school's super-popular rock band, Dumb, a paying gig. The catch? Piper is deaf. Can she manage a band with five wildly different musicians, nurture a budding romance, and discover her own inner rock star, though she can't hear Dumb's music?"

I'm on a contemporary kick. I'll probably be jumping back and forth between FBI thriller types, and YA types. I've heard great things about the book, and the blurb really has me hooked. It helps that I've got a character in my WiP who's in a band, so this will also be good research. ^_^

And that's my reading update! I'm looking forward to checking out yours!

Busy Apparently Doesn't Include Blogging

Long time, no post.

Sometimes I go in and out of phases in my writing. High productivity for a couple of months, and then a huge crash. The crash, unfortunately, tries to last forever. I think, at its worse, I went a year without writing a single word, which I justified by being mega busy and in college at the time.

Well, I'm no longer in college and I shouldn't be justifying that sort of thing anyway.

So, for the month and a half while I was in NJ, I didn't write much. Maybe about 4000 words, which is just sad. I read quite a bit, which was fun and useful, but visiting NJ means high-stress, and I'm still working on managing that too. Thankfully, I have been doing a much better job combatting the crash since I've gotten back home. I've been fairly steady with my newest project - a YA comedic ghost-hunting romp - and hammering out a query for my second novel, KNIGHT.

The query writing it touch-and-go. It's on about stage ten or eleven now, at least three weeks of major obsession, haha, and I think it's finally getting close to completion. The synopsis needs some touch-up, but it's stronger than any versions of my query so far, and I'm hoping to have edits on the actual novel complete by the end of August. Basically, I want to be hunting for an agent starting September. *Fingers crossed*

Maybe I'll do a query update post, and show then and now. Any helpful critiques would be appreciated.

Another thing I've been working on is a cover update for my self-published novel, THE ETERNAL QUEEN. I really like the cover I was able to produce for EQ (you can see it on the sidebar). But I do think it could be better. Now, wiser to the ways of book cover production (and still a little too poor to immediately seek out an actual design professional - design is sometimes a part of my job, but I wouldn't call myself an artist), I've been having... fun... testing out new ideas.

Maybe fun isn't the right word.

It's been an... experience.

So, that's my news for the past few weeks. I've also heard very exciting news from all the bloggers I follow. I generally read them all in my Google Reader, which isn't really conducive to commenting (oops). At the very least, though late to the game (ho-hum, word choice ^_~), I know Kyra Lennon's book GAME ON (#1) has hit the digital shelves. I'm looking forward to checking it out - I love soccer and have been craving some contemporary YA. Seems like a perfect fit, ^_^.

How long have you let yourself be unproductive? How do you combat the great writing crashes?