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.

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?

Home and Regrouping

I'm back home.

I spent the first week back just relaxing and sleeping - a lot of sleeping.

My visit to family and friends in NJ for my sister's wedding was awesome, but exhausting. It's this sort of "out of my element" feeling that grows and grows and grows, and then by the time week 6 hit I was really just in a daze.

Living out of a backpack is fun for, oh, maybe a week or two, haha!

Needless to say, I've been a complete writing bum for the past four or five weeks. I like to think I made up for it by reading a lot more, and at least sort of planning out some Leonard Kaine, but that's mostly just searching for excuses.

I also totally thought I had actually posted a post about not blogging much until June, but apparently I didn't, and I never checked, so, good one for me.

So I'm going to be easing my way back into this blogging sphere, ^_^. You'll probably start to see a lot more of me after this weekend.

Dust It Off Bloghop #3: Reflections

Big thank you to Theresa Paolo & Cortney Pearson. You've hosted an awesome bloghop.

Dust it Off Bloghop Notes/Dates:

May 3rd: Post a 1-2 sentence pitch about the shelved WIP.  The second day, May 5th:  Post your favorite excerpt (300-350 words)The third day, May 7th: Post what you learned from this WIP.

    What have I learned from the Dust-it-Off Bloghop?

    Probably, the number one thing, to read instructions better. *Laughs*

I think if I had realized it would be best to snag a W.i.P that was really old, and really not looked at recently, I would have chosen the very first book I tried to write (the only one that wasn't recycled into something I actually wrote and finished – be it short story or novel). I shelved Knight for a few months, but I always knew I'd be going back to it to edit. Indeed, I have recently started editing it to become it's second draft form. Ah, if this means Knight doesn't count, that's ok, it was fun to share anyway.

    Secondly, I need to get back on my schedule. I'm letting my visit to NJ mess with me, when really, it's more my own nerves blocking my blogging and writing.

    Thirdly, man I missed Knight. It was only shelved for two or three months, but during that time I was trying to get through the first section of The Wandering Shadow. Which was torture. I've never loved an idea so much and had such a hard time writing it. Not like Knight, which I adored from beginning to end, despite a slight rough patch the last few chapters when it was, haha, right smack dab in the middle of another visit to NJ. (Are you sensing a pattern? K.S. does not do well with traveling! And she misses her apartment and boy like crazy.)

    It really helped to re-read Knight, to dive back into characters and scenes that moved fluidly and felt energetic and connected. It really helped to talk with those characters again, have a heart-to-heart with Erin, and start thinking about the next in the series (though that won't start being written until November, most likely).

    And lastly, I learned that the blogging community is awesome. They'll even post on people's blogs who are crazy, and feather-brained, and don't read instructions clearly enough. >.<

    Thanks for stepping into Erin's world for the past week. I can assure you, she was glad to show you around and introduce you to her friends.  

Dust it Off Bloghop Day 2, writing update

Bachelorette party for my sister successful! Busyness level back to manageable. Plans for the rest of the weekend include: 1. Continuing the Dust it Off Bloghop (created by the amazing Theresa Paolo & Cortney Pearson). 2. Actually tackling the many blogs and commenting I've been wanting to do. 3. Writing another chapter for my current W.i.P

Dust it Off Bloghop dates:

May 3rd: Post a 1-2 sentence pitch about the shelved WIP.  The second day, May 5th:  Post your favorite excerpt (300-350 words)The third day, May 7th: Post what you learned from this WIP.

 DUST IT OFF BLOGHOP EXCERPT

     
     “A dark stranger. A shadowy past. A suspicious conversation,” he continued. “Mist Walkers, mystery, murder-”

     “Woah,” Erin said, sitting up straighter.

     “Murder?” Jolene repeated in bewilderment.

     “Not one right now, but there could be. Any day. What if this Matthew fellow is a crazed killer? Mist Walkers all have to be a little off in the head. Being outside his natural habitat, he could snap at any moment.”

     It was how dead serious he sounded that made Erin gape for as long as she did. She sent a silent look, pleading for some understanding from Derrin, who until this point had been fairly silent. His long legs were stretched out, his head resting on his arms. Derrin had always been too tall for his own good, and his six feet five inches were even more apparent seeing him like this. In sharp contrast to Humphrey, Derrin kept his brown hair short, almost completely shaved. He gave Erin a small grin. He had a small scar on the left side of his chin that just reached his bottom lip, which Erin had given him their first day of school.

     “Well,” he said slowly. “He could be a murderer.”

     Humphrey and Derrin were both Guard Mages. Like her father, they guarded the farms, and so had the same bright yellow and orange uniforms. With two years under their belts, three for Humphrey, they were both considered standard Guard Mages instead of novices. Finishing school was how students marked their passage into adulthood. Moving past the novice level was how the actual adults marked another's adulthood. By that point, one would hopefully have gained more experience and maturity.

     'Obviously not the case with these two,' Erin grumbled in her head. Her magic slid up and into her fingertips, making them itch, telling her that it was happy to help her express her displeasure at any moment. Erin wished her magic really was a dog. She'd have given it a good scratch behind the ears.

Dust It Off Bloghop: The Pitch

Time for a new bloghop! Though I'm still reeling and trying to get my feet back under me from the last one! Haha. Details are:

The amazing Theresa Paolo & Cortney Pearson are having their first Bloghop!!! The Dust It Off Bloghop will be three days, May 3rd, 5th and 7th. 

"We've all had those manuscripts that we poured our heart into, fell in love with the characters and still think of them at random, but unfortunately had to shelf. Now it's time for a little spring cleaning. Take out those manuscripts and Dust It Off!" - Theresa Paolo 

The first day, May 3rd: Post a 1-2 sentence pitch about the shelved WIP.  The second day, May 5th:  Post your favorite excerpt (300-350 words)The third day, May 7th: Post what you learned from this WIP.

So, a little bit about my W.i.P! It's called Knight: Book 1 of the Mist Walkers series (planned to be four books). It's a YA fantasy. Set in a world shrouded by a chaotic fog called the Mist, and involving magic, mage vs. non-mage conflicts, mystery, and the strange Mist Walkers. I'm not sure how much we're allowed to give away, or should, so, onto the pitch!


Knight: The Pitch

Erin Langley is two years overdue on graduating, thanks to her magic, which acts like a pyromaniac puppy with a prankster's heart. When a caravan cuts through the dangerous Mist that blankets the world, bringing fascinating news and trinkets from other cities, they also bring the mysterious Matthew, and a heap of trouble that Erin will find herself smack dab in the middle of, faulty magic or no.

You should definitely look into the bloghop if you haven't yet. And then check out the one hosted by Kelley Lynn and Emily King - Oh, Those High School Dances Bloghop.

A-Z Challenge #14: N is for News

N is for News Update!

So, a little break from the regularly scheduled posting of Wandering Shadow snippets. (shh.... this isn't because I totally blanked on a snippet for N, *shakes head vigorously* not at all)


Anyway... first off, thank you to everyone who has been following the snippets so far. I know I don't give a lot of explanation behind them, haha, so I hope you're enjoying them despite probably being a little confused. I guess to give a tiny bit of information - The Wandering Shadow is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and you follow Art as he collect (*coughdragscough*) a couple of other survivors into his mad scheme of living-it-up in this supposed "dead" world. Naturally, they have varying degrees of tolerance for Art's antics. The book is mostly from James' point-of-view, and, well, James is not so easily convinced that life is anything to hoorah about.

So, besides the snippets, I've been a little busy the past week, and I'm going to be quite busy this week. And whenever I get super busy I sort of shut-down on things not directly related to what needs to be done. Unfortunately, writing falls under this. Luckily, I haven't just been sitting around fretting (not too much, anyway), and I've try to maintain a certain level of productivity.

Busy, Busy... Tearing Down a WiP to the Bones

I've been super quiet lately, and my Google Reader is just about bursting with blog posts and articles I can't wait to read. I actually do catch up, most of the time. I'm still a fairly big lurker - I need to be in the right mood where I don't feel mortified about my lame commenting abilities in order to be social.

So, what have I been up to?

Well, The Wandering Shadow needed my attention. And more than just me half-heartedly poking at it during the week, wondering why it wouldn't behave and just write itself. Oh yeah, that's my job. I'm the one that has to write it, no matter how much I wanted it to finish itself. Or at least, start itself.

I've been having some major problems getting immersed in WS's world. Which is sort of a first for me. I normally love jumping into worlds and exploring. Then I start throwing together characters to wander around and blink blearily at each other like, "Ok, now what?"

Well, that's not entirely true. First I think up a character. But then I let the idea fight an epic battle with the other ideas in my head, and then itself, and then I'm all about the world! Once the dust settles and the fighting is done with, I normally have a grand stage to populate.

Not so with Wandering Shadow. Not so much at all.

This is how WS and I have
been communicating lately.

I have these amazing characters (I think, haha) and they're ready to run around and bash people in the shins with metal poles, or rock out on top of crumbling skyscrapers, and I have them... standing in the middle of an empty road... staring. Just... staring...

This road is more interesting than
the one I dragged them to.

And that was after painstakingly dragging them to that spot. Why did I drag them to such a boring place?!

Well, that's what has been occupying most of my time. I had a minor breakthrough on Monday night, which became a major breakthrough by Wednesday morning, so I'm hoping things start to flow a tiny bit better. And that's enough of my sorry news. Let me leave you with something more exciting.

1. The YA Scavenger Hunt started today! It's very exciting. It's 60 authors, I believe, and everyone's giving away tons of great prizes. I highly recommend checking it out.

2. I'm almost, sorta, well actually only halfway through my A-Z prepping. Luckily, I've gotten the first half just about done, so even if I don't finish all 26 before April, I'm good for the first couple of weeks.


Have you already heard about the hunt? Are you tearing apart a WiP? Or coasting through edits? I hope you're having a great week! Just one more day and then the weekend, right?

Planning and The Weather

I would first like to share a letter to The Weather.

Ahem.

Dear Weather,
     Seriously? 80 degrees in March?
     You've probably made a lot of people happy this past week. And according to my widget, this is going to last for a few more days.
    But, being a person that enjoys 'late winter/early spring' & autumn weather best, please, remember it's not quite time for summer. Not yet.

Sincerely,
    K.S.

So, after the laziest weekend ever, which is odd since last weekend was fairly productive, I'm starting off the week with a little more oomph. I've got plans for a novella of sorts that I'll probably be posting about soon, and I'm reading through The Jester's Apprentice, a medieval mystery I picked up during Read an eBook Week. I've been craving a mystery novel lately. So far it's been a lot of fun, though I keep forgetting it's medieval. So when they do very medieval-y things I'm always surprised, haha.

And I'm happily chugging my way through my A to Z Challenge planning. With my spotty memory, a day's worth of anti-shyness rallying before posting anything on the internet, I figured it was best to prepare my posts before April. And, since I did sort of find out about this a little close to deadline, haha, I'm keeping things simple by centering them all around my current W.i.P, The Wandering Shadow.

But how is any of this writing news more important than this: Minecraft works on my computer! Granted, it only works for about twenty minutes, and has a high rate of causing my computer to overheat and crash, but it works!

I like Minecraft, even if I think it's one of the scariest things I've ever seen. And I like scary. But I like reading scary. And watching scary. Playing scary? Not so much. I'm a total coward! And Minecraft does such an amazing job of creating a creepy vibe even when you're in a perfectly safe part of the game.

No, I mean it. Need inspiration for a tense or horrifying scene? Look no further than creepers, zombies, haunting music, and the dreaded Endermen!

Apparently these guys are not
that threatening or scary.

But I turned around in the game
and this guy was just standing and
staring at me and I totally yelped.

That's right - yelped.

It's like when I stumbled upon the Something Awful creation - The Slender Man. Talk about creepy!

Now that I've made myself paranoid for the rest of the day, I'm going to go write. And... not play Minecraft.

Write-A-Thon #1: 3 Hour-ish Mark

So... my crazy plan to write the day away is going both well and terrible.

What I've discovered so far:

1. My plan to 'write whatever I feel like writing' is not a good one. I think I need to decide to work on just one thing, or maybe two, splitting the day at a definitive point. Because, man, my brain jumps to different things WAY too often.

    Woke up around 10am thinking it was 9am because, haha, did you know the clocks changed last night? Well, wrote 300 words of random fun to start off my day and then ate a late breakfast with Ghost Adventures on as background noise, because I was eating something too messy to type while munching on. Jumped back in for another 200 words of random fun. Then trouble hit.

2. Mapping out a book counts? No? Darn.

   Around noon is when I decided to switch tracks. I wanted to do something a little more focused and useful, so I re-read chapter five of WS to jump into chapter six. Got a couple of hundred done for that and then, bam, mind jumped. I decided, hey, why not map out Damsel (book 2 of Mist Walkers)?

   So, I started mapping out Damsel. I must say, I'm super excited for Damsel. Mist Walkers is four books long, and, while I shouldn't be picking favorites, I think Damsel is going to hold a special place in my heart. I was relieved at how easily mapping out the first third of Damsel was, compared to how WS drags its feet through almost every chapter and planning session.

3.  That's when I realized that this experiment for the day was working both great and terrible. I want to be able to sit down and focus, but I had essentially told myself it was ok not to focus so long as I was writing. Pros and cons on both sides.

4.  I probably shouldn't type with my laptop actually on my lap. Ouch. Hot.

5.  So, I'm going to try and spend the second half of today, after my break for lunch and before I quit for Once Upon a Time at 7pm, working exclusively on chapter six of WS and the first section of a short story I started last week.

But, all in all, the experiment has been great fun so far. And that's really what counts.

The Eternal Queen and Writing

First things first, you might have noticed an addition to the sidebar. Smashwords is currently celebrating Read an eBook Week, 3/4 - 3/10. I've got EQ all signed up and free to purchase for the duration of the event. You might already know this if you follow my Twitter feed. I don't blame you if you don't, I'm still very quiet on Twitter.

Eternal Queen is my debut novel, self-published with Amazon and Smashwords. It's a dark fractured fairy tale with kidnapped royalty, whimsical story-telling, nefarious plotting, and straight-up murder. If you're interested, nab it now! (Don't forget the coupon code, RE100)

That's the big, big news. Now, some smaller things.


So, after a very lovely and productive weekend I was worried I was going to slump this week. I've been a dreadful CP lately, though Tobi's been kind about kicking my butt into gear. One of my problems is that I've done very little writing during weeknights. So it was a huge relief when I just sat down after work today and wrote a whole chapter!

First, I love it when that happens. Who doesn't? But it came at a cost - tenses.

I'm dreadful with tenses. Sometimes I'm on course. Most of the time when I make a tense mistake I do catch it. But sometimes... well, let's just say I wrote all of Chapter 5 in present tense, got to the end, stared at it, and wanted to bang my head into the keyboard. I could recognize that something was completely off about the chapter, but when my brain doesn't want to jump up and wave at the present tense and sing, "wrong, wrong, wrong"... well, I'm not going to find it myself. Luckily, my bf rarely minds when I shove my laptop into his hands with a frustrated, "Something. WRONG. Help."

It also doesn't hurt that he's been wanting me to write this book for at least a year and a half now, so every time he reads a chapter he gets super excited. Yeah, I've had the Wandering Shadow, well, wandering around in my head for a long time, haha.


So, my last big writing update that I can think of is this - I have a crazy plan. It was born, as most of my plans are, when I hear someone else did something crazy and must test it for myself. This idea unfolded just so this past Sunday,

'Drew,' I said. 'I read somewhere that some people manage to write their whole NaNoWriMo novel on the first day. That's crazy, right?' 

'Not at all. It just means that they have no fear!'
(My bf's number one motivating technique when he thinks I need to write is to point at me and say, 'No fear! Just write!')

'Huh. I don't think I could ever do that.' I said.

'You totally could. You should. Start right now!'
(My bf's number two motivating technique is to point at me and say, 'Go! Just write! Right now!')

'Well,' I said. And because I'm crazy, I continued. 'I don't think I could write 50,000 words in a day. But I've never tried to see how many words I could write in a day.'

'Well. You should test it out.' He said.

'I think I will.'

'Awesome. But first-' And, of course, he pointed. 'Write the next chapter of The Wandering Shadow!'

So, after not writing the next chapter of WS, and instead writing a piece of flash fiction (look for it on Friday), I decided that this Sunday, and maybe one Sunday of every month, I'm going to clear my schedule and just write from when I wake up to when I fall asleep. It's not going to be 24 hours, because a) I'd be a zombie at work the next day, and b) I think I'd die, but, it will be more or less "all day."

I have no idea how this plan will go down. I'm hoping it's not a complete flop. I doubt it will be just writing WS, so I have one long short story I've been meaning to write, and maybe a few of my flash fiction pieces to contemplate fleshing out. I suppose I will be a little more active on Twitter that day, so if you want to watch my progress I'll try and update it there.


And, well, I guess that's it. Awesome updates and crazy plans all laid out. I'll leave you with a small clip from my favorite TV show, One Piece. Needless to say, Luffy doesn't read much, ^_^

Writing Fun: I'm Hearing Voice pt. 3

Well, I hope the next time I find out about, or hear about, a blogfest I can do it officially. This is the last prompt for the I'm Hearing Voice blogfest - a 250 word flash fiction meant to explore a single emotion. This was a lot of fun. I know I learned a lot about my characters this past week.

I'm not sure if this is how I was supposed to write this scene. Like, I think I should have made it like an enclosed scene, instead of a snippet, but, I'm not doing this officially anyway so I don't mind bending things, haha.

Without further ado: Such A Little Thing

   Chester - James, his name is James! - shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the tension in his shoulders winding tight all the way down his spine like a line of fire. His hands shook- he needed to stop that, because he wasn't sure if it was anger or shame and he didn't want to find out. When the fingers of his right hand brushed against something hard and cool he started, a breath of air whooshing out of his nose in an angry snort as he pulled out the harmonica.
   It surprised him suddenly. The instrument, so much smaller than his guitar, but as it sat nestled in the curve of his palm it seemed to weigh a ton. It ached. The hurt sank into his skin and wound its way through the muscles and it twined around the bones in his hand, and how could it when it was just sitting there, such a little thing?
   The row of metal punctuated with holes looked like a mocking smirk and all the heat that had been bubbling at the small of his back rushed up his skin to pool behind his eyes. He lifted his free hand to cover them.

It's not the same, but is sort of is, don't you think? Play something! Well, well? Chester the Bard! It's perfect! So, so, play something!

   "Shit," he breathed, forcing the word out despite his clenched jaw.

Chester is one of the main characters in my new novel - The Wandering Shadow. I'm sure you'll learn more about him in time. I'm going to have a lot of fun torturing uhh, I mean, writing his many new adventures!

Writing Fun: I'm Hearing Voices pt. 2

Well, it's a good thing that I'm not officially participating, because I woke up this morning and was like, 'Shoot, I totally forgot to update my blog again.' That's exactly how I thought it too.

I'd like to say I have a good reason, but not really. Last night ION aired, like, four episodes of Ghost Whisperer back-to-back and then I caught up on some reading. The funny thing was that I remembered in the morning, but it completely slipped my mind in the afternoon. Anyway, part two of this snazzy dance is 'character introduction via pure dialogue.'

I had a lot of fun envisioning this conversation:

"Do you think she's deaf?"

"No. She reacts to everything we're saying. And she heard Art when he was trying to sneak in."

"Well, maybe she bit her tongue off."

"Impossible. Human body can bleed out that way."

"Can bleed out that way sounds open-ended. So it can not bleed out that way as well."

"Smart-ass."

"I'm just saying-"

"Art! Where are you going?"

"Elpirt wants to show us something!"

"Well, then wait up a moment. We'll come too. Let's go, kid."

"I think I'll stay here."

"What? Why?"

"We're standing in a room where the floor is covered in human remains-"

"Looks mostly animal to me."

"Not comforting. That's not comforting. You want to know why? It was the use of the word 'mostly'."

"I'm not sure how you've survived this long."

"Me neither."

Writing Fun: I'm Hearing Voices pt. 1

So, there is this really cool blogfest that just started called - I'm Hearing Voices. I'm not doing this officially, since I've just discovered it. Which seems to be the case with all these cool blog challenges. But I still want to use it as a great exercise tool to get to know my four newest characters. I guess I'll start with Arthur, since he's both the easiest and toughest for me to write.

For anyone interested in learning more about the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest, click here for details. ^_^




Interviewing: Self-proclaimed Arthur Grisby, the Wandering Shadow




1.      What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret?

CATS! Have you seen their claws? Oh, what about birds? Sharp, pointy beaks. And dogs can bite, and what about, eww, what about bugs? Oh, oh, FIRE! I burned my arm once, see?

*softly* And I guess I sort of hate being alone. Just a little.

2.      What do people believe about you that is false?

Hmph, Chester says I can't focus on reality. That's stupid. The reality is that that is stupid. See? There, I focused.

3.      What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why?

Well, he says I can't focus enough. And calm down enough. And that I pick fights. And that I'm not looking at things right. And that I shouldn't trust what I do. And… he's still listing things! *grins*

4.      What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why?

Chester said, "You're pretty crazy," after I had to go and show that Skull Group the might of Arthur - the Wandering Shadow! And when he picked up his guitar, he said, "Thanks." So he must have really liked that.

5.      What do you want most? What will you do to get it?

ADVENTURE! What will I do? I'm already doing it! *laughs*

2012 Reading Goals

So, I've joined GoodReads 2012 Reading Goal Challenge.

My mission: 65 books in 2012.

I know what you're thinking... 'Kim, you just read three book in a week, isn't 65 sort of a small number at that pace?'

Honestly, I doubt I'm going to keep this completely insane pace up. First, I'm about to jump into formatting my novel, The Eternal Queen, for eBook release. That's right, I'm going to explore the world of self-publishing while I edit up Knight for summer or fall querying. I'd like to see both sides of the publishing world, self and traditional, and I feel like the two books match the two types.

Secondly, I'm getting more hours for my job, so that keeps me busy as well.

Thirdly, I'm going to be editing Knight soon, and then mapping out my next book idea - The Wandering Shadow. Both are going to be quite time-consuming.

Basically, at some point I'm sure I'll start struggling just to meet my initial goal of a book a week. I'm just getting a bit of a head start now.

If you've got a 2012 Reading Goal, let me know. ^_^

Time Flies...

Oh my, so what have I been up to for so long that I haven't updated my blog in a month?

Well, for one, my boy and I flew back to Jersey to see the families over the holiday. That automatically guarantees my schedule gets completely turned on its head and that I turn into a useless and get nothing done person.

Then I got sick.

I feel like I don't get sick that often, so when I do, it sticks with me, and drags on for what feels like forever. This one lasted two weeks. There were a few days my voice was basically gone. And I was crashing on a couch in my sister's basement for three and half weeks. It wasn't an uncomfortable couch, but it was still a couch. And my sister has a two year old - good kid, good crier, good at running around at 6 in the morning. Which would not have been so bad if I wasn't constantly waking up in the middle of the night needing more tissues, or just getting used to the fact I was in a basement on a couch and not in my bed in my apartment. Needless to say, I was a little sleep deprived on top of being sick.

Hm... I need to stop moaning and groaning now.

Nothing I had on my schedule got completed, even when I had factored in the fact I get less done on my family visits. So I'm scrambling to catch up to the schedule I wanted to have.

One thing I wanted to do was hammer out a better schedule for the blog, haha. And to hammer out a better writing and reading schedule.

Basically, I want to start writing 500 words a day, guaranteed. That I've still failed at, but since I've been doing a lot of editing on The Eternal Queen, so I haven't felt too guilty.

Another thing I wanted to do was read a book a week. This, at least, I have accomplished! In fact, I'm ahead of schedule. I sat down over the last few days and have read two books that have been on my list:

1. Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake
2. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin
(I probably should be linking to their author sites, but I was already on Amazon while writing this.)

I really enjoyed both books. Loved the characters, the writing, and the settings. I loved the way they both described the tense scenes. In Blake's Anna, I thoroughly enjoyed the world she developed and the way any interactions with ghosts felt unsettling and creepy. I loved the way the magic of the world was revealed.

In Unbecoming it was much the same. I loved the wonderfully chilling mental undoing of Mara, where you're never quite sure {just like Mara} what's real and not real. How much is inside this crumbling, strained mind of this young girl? Just what dark memory is waiting to show itself in fractured dreams and hallucinations?

Now, I'm an avid ghost fan. The book/movie/tv show can be terrible, but if it has ghosts in it, I'll probably enjoy it anyway. I know this about myself, so I knew that Anna Dress In Blood was going to be right up my alley. One of my favorite books is Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light, a ghost love story. And another thing I really like is weird and dark stories. So a teenage girl struggling with hallucinations and PTSD concerning a dark, forgotten night of terror that killed three of her friends? Yeah, I had some pretty excited expectations about The Unbecoming as well.

And I have to say, I enjoyed both books and would recommend them. I know I'm doing them terrible justice right now, this isn't the most thought out blog post. It's more like, a stream-of-conscious-excuse-to-procrastinate-on-editing post. Shh... don't judge.

However, I will admit, the ending to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was rather a... disappointment. It was... it just wasn't what I was anticipating as I read the book. It was like the book and I were playing chess and then suddenly I realized the game was actually checkers. Yeah, that was a weird comparison... *cough* That being said, I think her subtle build-up to the ending was still amazing, even if it disappointed me. I loved all the subtle building in the book. All the little twists and unraveling plot lines that were actually connecting in ways that hadn't yet been revealed. But yeah... it was... well... it bumped the book down a bit for me.

But I think that's for every reader to decide themselves, and the only way you can decide, is to read it yourself. So go do that, like, right now! Then come back and tell to me your thoughts. I like to hear peoples thoughts, even if sometimes I'm a tad slow at responding.

As for Anna Dressed In Blood, well, it totally met my expectations. It was what I thought it would be. I wasn't really completely convinced by the main romantic plot, but, eh, that's another thing each reader will decide for themselves. I loved the secondary characters, probably more than the main character. That's not too strange, since a) first person puts me on edge, and no I don't know why, and no, I don't immediately dislike a book if it's in first person - I just prefer third person books most of the time; and b) there's a lot more pressure on the main character with first person (in my opinion), because you are literally in that person's head the whole time, so little things I would normally dismiss if they didn't really click with me become almost impossible to ignore.

There wasn't even anything really big with Cas, the main character. I think it was mostly the love plot being, in my opinion, a little rushed.

I guess this is the time to mention that I seriously, seriously prefer love plots to be side plots and not main plots (and yes, I know I just said one of my favorite books is a ghost-love story, shh...). So I knew going in that the love plot was a main thing, from reading the back of the book, and the summary on Amazon, so, like, I had already prepared myself to jump into a "love" story. I mean, I guess the love plot wasn't really the main point of the book, but yeah, it kind of was.

But man, Blake's supernatural elements were so much fun. Anna was a great ghost. And only one of many great ghosts in the book. Blake gives us quite a few to enjoy.

Anyway, yeah, go read those books if you haven't! They're both great fun, and dark, and creepy, and just darn good stories, even with the stuff I didn't dig as much.

As mentioned, I'm still catching up with myself so the blogging might still be slow. But I'm not disappearing, so no worries on that front!

Hope you had a great holiday and that the new year is treating you well!

*I'm sorry if my constant tweaking makes this appear multiple times in RSS update feeds*

Writing Update! NaNo & More

Oh, disappeared there for a while. Been working hard on the first draft of Knight. I'm seven chapters (give or take) away from the end of the first draft. My goal is to finish by December 9th, because then life gets hectic as I head to NJ for the holidays and I don't want to potentially leave two or three chapters unwritten for a month.

So, I won NaNo! Sort of, I mean, by there definition maybe not so much, since it was not a brand new idea that I started and completed in 50,000 words. But I did write 50,000 words, most for Knight. But I also started planning the next book I want to work on, as well as Book 2 in the Mist Walkers series. And I also wrote a bunch of little snippets from future books, new story ideas, just for fun, etc.

It was a great experience, especially having my writing buddy to act as cheerleader while she worked on her own NaNo (she also won!).

That's basically what I've been working on, that and eagerly awaiting new episodes of One Piece and Once Upon a Time.

It's so great to see the Strawhats all back together again! Just goes to show how great a writer Oda is (in my opinion), where for 2 years (literally and in the story), we were exclusively following Luffy and only got a handful of scenes to update us on the other characters! Now, I started watching One Piece over the summer, so I didn't actually have a two year wait to see the reunion, and you can bet there were several arcs, the Marineford arc the most recent, that my boy and I watched in marathon runs over several weekends. I was actually the one making us slow down during the Marine/Whitebeard war since I knew we'd soon catch up to the real schedule! And man, does it hurt having to wait a week for one new episode when you're used to sitting down a watching eight episodes over a weekend. Ouch!

Luckily, Castle has picked up it's pace and is back to be the wonderful show it is! I wasn't completely upset with the opening episodes to the season, they were just soo dark, and there were several scenes I knew I was giggling at that I wasn't supposed to, and I just wanted to see classic Castle goodness. Surprisingly, one of the last episodes I've seen was a dramatic one, and wow! Amazing! The way they shot it was perfect. So I know Castle can do great dramatic episodes, I just don't want that to be dragging over several episodes at a time. Castle, at its heart, is comedy first. Maybe that's just me.

Also, Once Upon a Time has been so much fun. I forget the name of the actor playing Rumplestiltskin - and am too lazy to check right now - but he is fantastic! Creepy, and mysterious, and a little crazy, just awesome. And it's been a lot of fun seeing new character unveiled, and getting fairy tale backstories. I'm not sure how it will last more than one season, but that's something to worry about later. Right now it's fun just watching things unfold.

And now that I've talked more about TV than writing, I'm jumping into the next chapter. I would love to finish three today, but I'll be happy with two. I've been stewing on them all week!

NaNoWriMo Update!

So, I've fallen a little behind with my NaNo word count. It happened on Friday that we went out and ended up meeting up with some friends, and then continuing the small party in our apartment (and by party, I mean we bought a bunch of candy to chow down on and played Mario Kart). It was a very fun time, but it meant I didn't write a single word.

To make matter worse, Saturday was a "down day." You know the type - where every word you write is the worst word in the whole world, and every sentence is terrible, and why did I ever think anyone would find my idea interesting? So I wrote what I could because not only was I behind on NaNo but I also had a chapter due to my writing buddy the next day. Then I played some Final Fantasy X-2.

But Sunday, wow, did I make up for it. I wrote almost 5,000 words, which I think is pretty good, considering the most I normally write a day (during NaNo) is 2,000. And now I'm still a little behind, but it's no longer by an overwhelming amount.

For all of you participating in NaNo, I hope you're still on schedule! And if you're not, well, maybe you'll have a Sunday like I did.

One thing I did do on Saturday was start drawing very silly pictures of my characters. They're very silly, rough pictures, and I gathered them all together so you can see them below. If I ever make any more detailed ones, I'll post them too. (I am not an artist, by the way, but I do find silly drawings like this fun, helpful, and relaxing)

Do you ever draw your characters? Let me know!

NaNoWriMo Update!

Well it's Day 2 of this year's NaNoWriMo!

I'm happy to say that I'm on schedule. I've come up with my own little system to see me through this challenge. Basically, I split the work into three, 600 word parts for each day. After I reach 600 words I take a little break - watch an episode of my latest Korean Drama Boys Over Flowers, or play some Final Fantasy X-2 (so many things about this game that are just wrong, but I love the leveling system), or read from the latest book I'm tackling (focused on Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman).

I am surprised to find that I'm jumping around a lot more than I expected to, and not in what story I'm writing. I initially planned to use NaNoWriMo to speed up how I was writing my next major book, Knight, start mapping a completely different type of book, a YA post-apocalyptic piece tentatively titled The Wandering Shadow, and work on a short story idea. I figured I'd probably use each section to work on each project, but instead I've mostly been devoting it to Knight.


However, I've been jumping around Knight, writing snippets of scenes for later chapter, or even later books (Knight is the first book in a three of four book series). Just before starting this post I wrote the last scene for book three. Luckily, between yesterday and today I've also worked on the next two chapters that I need to actually write, so I'm not that worried. It's just I've been working hard at keeping myself focused on the first book of my series. In high school and undergrad I remember starting so many books that were going to be the first of an epic series. I'd burn myself out trying to juggle so many ideas. It wasn't until I sat down to write The Eternal Queen, a stand-alone novel, that I finally completed a book and not a short story.

Do you ever find yourself doing that?

But it is my dream to write a few series, starting with Mist Walkers, of which Knight is Book One. I want to see how I grow characters when they have several books to experience things and struggle through the ups and downs of living in a world surrounded by a suffocating fog concealing Monsters and Dragons. And treasures, if you know where to look, as Gaspar would say.

To everyone participating in NaNoWriMo, how are you doing? Are you on schedule? Don't worry if you're not, you have time to make up for a slow start, and most of all, it's all about having fun and writing.

Writing Update: Developing Characters, The Misleading Concept of 'Good vs. Bad Traits'

I think I've posted more about reading and TV than actual writing, which is rather sad. So here's something about writing!

I've been thinking a lot about character development. Probably because I've started a new book, so naturally I'm creating new characters to fill the world. But as I talked over some Tex-Mex Egg Rolls with my boyfriend about the motivations and personalities of some of my characters, it eventually turned into a discussion of why we love certain characters over others, or, why some characters feel more developed (real) than others.

For a long time as a writer I always gravitated towards this concept that a character, in order to be fully developed, needs good and bad traits. But I think that's misleading. It's not that a characters needs good and bad traits, it's that a character's traits need to be fully embraced. This is an idea I'm much better at rambling about out loud than on the page, oddly enough, but let's see if I can explain:

It's not that a character is both lazy and loyal. Those two characteristics are not the character. It's that those two characteristics can be words used to describe the actions/thoughts/etc. of the character. And both traits are rounded in their own ways – lazy is often thought of as a bad trait, and loyalty a good trait, but both traits have their own spectrum of “good and bad.”

A loyal person can be someone who always sticks up for a friend. But they can also be someone who too stubborn to recognize that being loyal doesn't mean mindlessly following and agreeing with everything that a friend says/does/believes, etc. Good and bad, and much more. Good and bad are just a part of the full spectrum.

I feel like a lot of writers (and I've done this as well), feel like traits need to be divided. A “good” character gets the “good” half of loyalty, while a “bad character” gets the “bad” half of loyalty. And it's when writers do that, that a character falls flat.

Let me see if I can show some examples, both literary and not, to help expand on my thoughts.

JK Rowling's Ron Weasley is a character who is both lazy and loyal. He's also short-tempered and funny, impulsive and caring, envious and strategic, and more. These traits are not who he is. He is a person with the whole spectrum of those traits feeding his personality and making him logically react certain ways in a situation.

When Draco Malfoy calls Hermione Granger a Mudblood, his impulsiveness, loyalty, short-temperedness, and caring all made him immediately jump into fight mode.

Just because Ron's loyal, doesn't mean that he always sticks by the decisions his friends make.

4^th Year, and during the 7^th book's Horcrux hunt being some big examples.

And just because he left his friends during those moments doesn't mean, at those times, he wasn't a “loyal” person.

Sorry if that was a spoiler.

His impulsiveness made it so he sometimes never thought before acting, and made him quick to jump into fights, but it also fed into his strategic thinking and made him passionate. Being impulsive will lead you to doing “good” and “bad” things.

It's really all how we writers look at our characters, I think. We, more than anyone else, should be looking at them as if the traits are describing a person vs. defining them.

Eiichiro Oda, the creator of the anime One Piece, is probably the greatest person I have ever seen at creating characters that always feel more than just the traits you could describe them as.

His character Luffy is rude, short-tempered, and violent. But the same traits that make him that also make him passionate and inspiring. The Straw Hats pirates, and Luffy especially, ALWAYS inspire me, and they're always growing as characters, taking those initial defining traits and naturally developing as they experience new events that test them as both individual people and a crew.

And no Straw Hat has developed more than Usopp.

Self-defined as a liar, coward, and weak fighter (obvious self-confidence and worth issues feed into these thoughts), Usopp can't see what we the audience (and the other Straw Hats) already know. Usopp may be cowardly, but that only means he runs from danger long enough to work out a plan. And while he may be scared, he never lets that part of himself get in the way of his devotion to his friends. He may be weak, but only physically – Usopp's genius and inventions and long-range sniper abilities has time and again saved the crew. He may be a liar, but it means that he is a great story-teller who often inspires his crew during tough moments. He's not one half of anything, he's everything these traits could make a person, and more. And as they've experienced one harrowing fight after another, Usopp's traits have evolved naturally as he's grown as a person, and the greatest hurdle he needed to overcome – his low self-worth – culminated in one of the most tear-jerking confrontations and character growth moments in the show.

And that's saying a lot, considering how chock-full of moments like that One Piece is.

If you ever find yourself saying,

“My character is too perfect, I need to give them faults,”

Then I don't think you've created a character with traits – you've shoved traits together in an attempt to make a character, and most likely you've cut those traits in half.

'Don't cut traits in half,' is my new mantra.

If I've got a character I would describe as stubborn, I'm going to look at that trait from every angle when my character is making a decision, or saying a line, or deciding what they think about another person. And then I'll probably watch One Piece, or read a well-loved book, to remind myself that a character is so much more than a line of adjectives.

What do you think is the best way of developing a character? Did my rambling about traits make sense? Let me know in the comments!