Another Monday Arrives...

I usually don't have the luxury of sitting down so early on my Monday.  It rained yesterday...and last night... so I didn't have to water this morning.  I've also decided that there's really no use in cleaning up the toys until tomorrow, or starting the laundry until much later today.  As it seems I'm not capable of working on my REAL writing until 9:30AM, I'm here...warming up my hands for typing.

I've made two more changes to the story.  The first was tiny and had to be done.  I was really just fixing a mistake that I'm not sure how I overlooked for so long...it was so OBVIOUS.  The second was yet another time issue...I have spent more time dealing with time than I have with anything else lately.  I suppose that's to be expected, considering the importance of time in this story.  Once these two little bits are cleared up, I can get things moving forward again.  I'd really like to see this done by the end of the month.

In the last week I've also managed to outline a few short stories.  At this point, I'm not sure when I'll find the time to write them, or if they'll have the potential to be expanded into longer works, but it was nice to bleed the creative vein onto something new.

In addition to my names lists and words I like list, I think I'm going to make a list of catchy phrases.  I have a few on my phone, but really need to relocate them.  I don't know what I'll do with them... but some feel like titles to things.

I'm starting a poetry-writing class this month...and having mixed feelings.  I really don't like poetry.  It's not an intimidation factor.  I get it.  It's just that so much poetry is terrible.  I used to waste many nights writing terrible poetry with other people who were also writing terrible poetry... and now I'm not even sure I could produce something terrible, because I'm just so reluctant to add to the mass of terrible that already exists.  I'm taking the class to gain some appreciation for poetry, and I hope my mind opens a bit more to the topic before the class starts.  Right now, the idea of doing a peer evaluation on a poem is nauseating.

My latte is cold and I haven't yet scavenged the kitchen for breakfast...so I should probably get up.  Only 12 minutes to go!

The Nation of Fear

After getting all the gun stuff out of my system... I realized something else was really bothering me.  People.

I am just so mad that there are people who are so alone that no one even notices how far gone they are until it's too late....until we have a pile of bodies to contend with and even more fear instilled in everyone.  How do people end up so alone?  And how do we (yes, we...we're all responsible for this one) let anyone BE that alone?  Are we really that scared....of each other?

I think it's Monday night insomnia...

This has been a real waste of a day.  I'm sitting here, wide awake, despite my relatively small caffeine intake.  Maybe it's just the typical Monday night insomnia.  I had a rare case of Sunday night insomnia last night, coupled with some pretty bizarre dreams that I don't remember.

I suppose the day started off pretty productive.  I got the kid pre-registered for preschool.  It was a bittersweet moment.  He's a big boy now...and I love him...and I miss my little boy.  Three is a really great age.  Selfishly, I'd like for him to stay three for a few years.  Everything that comes out of his mouth is gold.  He's just hilarious.  And he's growing up...

That was about where the productivity ended.  I spent a while drawing little black lines and dots and squiggles on the table top I've been working on, and then I gave it 5 coats of polyurethane.  It's not yet done.  After that, I settled in to write.  I've been doing a pretty big rewrite in the beginning, and have gotten to a sticking point.  It's frustrating...I know what comes next, but really want to get through this little part first.  It's just a couple pages, but I'm stuck.  Over-thinking is probably to blame.  So I paced around and drank my coffee and paced around some more.  There was just no writing it today.

And then I heard a song...and there was that little movie in my head.  That's how I see the story, by the way. It's a movie and I just have to write down what I see.  The movie was awful...in that it was really good, but so depressing that I couldn't write it without crying. So I sat there, listening to the song on repeat and crying as I wrote less than a thousand words.  I'm terrible at goodbyes in any context.  This one is right up there with...well, I haven't had a goodbye like this in my life.  I think I'm thankful for that.  It tore me up pretty bad...and the thing is, the part that I wrote isn't even all that upsetting.  I just know what it takes to get there and what's about to happen...so the tiny moment of calm that my characters have makes me ache for them.

I also made salsa, picked up the outside toys, and went for a walk.  The walk was at least partially rewarding in that I got to spend a considerable amount of time completely lost in my head.  I have a playlist for the book, and I was listening to it.  The fact that monsoons are starting and so much of the story depends on the weather...it's good for inspiration.  I was really hoping to get more focus from my walk, though....to come home with a clear mind and motivation to spare.

It's almost midnight... I should be sleeping.  I should be dreaming...

I should put some of that sweet dream stuff on my pillow and try my very hardest to not think for a while.  Maybe do some progressive muscle relaxation...I used to really love that...and it worked great for insomnia. Becoming a mom seems to have been the ultimate insomnia cure, though.  Except on Mondays...sleep never comes easy when the kid's not home.

I think my chances of falling asleep will be greatly improved if I turn off the computer...

What's in a Name?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a thing for naming things.  I once had hundreds of rubber duckies, and almost all had names.  Yes, I knew those names.  My computers are named (Friday, Dexter, and Howard).  My son has two middle names, and I would have given him a dozen if I'd thought it socially acceptable.  Two is kind of the limit on that, right?  Maybe three.  I don't know.

Anyway...

I haven't officially named the series I'm writing.  It has a working title, as an overall kind of thing for the whole series.  However, not a single one of the individual books has been named.  I feel that this is a hindrance, and that by leaving them unnamed for this long, I'm losing a valuable piece of my story.  What if the name is important to the story?  What if, once I know what it's called, I have to rewrite the whole thing?  That seems all too likely.

The naming issue has been in the back of my mind for over a year, and it's never mattered nearly as much as it does right now.  Why?  Because I named something else.  It's another story that's been in the back of my mind for close to a year now.  I could blame Rumi or Deepak Chopra for it, because I'm sure one of them had something to do with its origin, but I don't remember.  It's not that I'm unhappy that I named it, it's just that... doing so makes me wonder about what I'm doing.

If that name came so simply, does that mean I should shift my focus?  I wasn't even working on that story...I just have a couple notes written down...but the name is there, and it's a real driving force.  I already know I'll be starting the story in August.

I'm not burnt out on the story I'm working on... I hope to have the entire first draft finished relatively soon, but have already gotten caught in a seemingly endless cycle of edits.  I have this terrible habit of putting in placeholder text...it gets a very vague idea across, but isn't what I actually want to say.  Then, I have to go back and clean it up...and sometimes I'm not yet prepared with the right words.  Today I found  a few of them, but not many.  It's been exactly a week since I sent out a section to early readers, and it's already changed quite a bit.

Also, I'm not sure if it's just MY version of Word, or if there's some universal issue with the program.  After page 60, the grammar and spell check functions seem to go insane.  They're missing things that are incorrect, but wanting me to make changes to things that are correct.  I know to, too, and two; I know their, there, and they're, tyvm...but Word is trying to make it look like a text message composed by Swype (which is typically grammatically incorrect to an embarrassing degree).  No, Word, the water did not "creep too her feet."

All that said... I should be writing :)

On Reading and Writing...

Yesterday I finished reading Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I was left feeling both overwhelmed by the excellence of the story and depressed because I don't have that level of conflict in my story.  I have been reminding myself all day that I am not writing the same kind of story, but I still feel somehow disheartened.  It's tough to see something so good, and to then sit for hours comparing myself and my work to that something.  It'd be nice to just appreciate it for what it is and then move on.  Or, not even necessarily move on, but just not beat myself up over it.  The worlds are so different that I shouldn't even be thinking the things that I'm thinking... (oh no, I'd better add some more violence and kill a few more people or no one will keep reading!!).

Insurgent was fantastic, though.  The first book in the series, Divergent, was also pretty good.  It's just nice when a second book is as good or better than the first... the story didn't slump at all.  The character development improved, the world building was amazing and far more detailed than in the first book, and the conflict...omg the conflict.  There wasn't a moment to breathe; no peace, no safety.  It was intense from beginning to end.  The end, for me, was predictable but really great.  It's taken the story from the average dystopia to something much more shocking.  It's a direction I've not seen in YA before... and it's just sooooo good.  I hate that I have to wait a year to find out how it all ends.

But here I am, comparing my otherworldly YA speculative fiction to a dystopia.  Some of the overall themes are similar, but the story...the things that happen to the characters to drive them to the conclusion are completely different.  I worry that the basic conflicts I'll present aren't dramatic enough... especially when you take into consideration the complete lack of vampires, werewolves, angels, fairies, or any other fairy tale creatures.  No magic, either (not in the traditional sense, anyway).  I'm not even going to have a genuine love triangle...or a love-at-first-sight thing (because those totally piss me off).  I'm actually so caught up in the 'what-ifs' that I'm stuck.  Should I add a bit of violence?  It'd only make a complete mockery of the world I'm creating.  Book two will have violence..plenty of it, I'm sure.  Should I throw in a glitter-covered something-or-other as a love interest, just to get the love triangle thing going?  Maybe, rather than having my male leads be science geeks who doing things that seem like magic...I'll give them actual magic.  But wait, no...that would ruin the story, too.  :|  There IS government conflict, but the point isn't to drive the story with conspiracy theories.  That'd make a great book, and I'll probably go there someday... but not now.

I just need to stop beating myself up.  My story is different.  I can't compare myself to everything out there.  It's a GOOD thing to like books... :)  Mine included... damnit.

Why I've Been Away...

Wow, it's been a while.  The last time I wrote here, I liked the layout.  Now, not so much.  This is pretty...ugly.

Anyway...

Why have I been away?  Why have I not been writing here???  Simple.  I've been writing somewhere else.  I'm now over 30,000 words into book one of my series.  It's a process, lemme tell ya... but it feels like the right thing to do.  It's a bit sloppy right now, and totally a rough draft, but I'm getting it all out and when it's out, I'll figure out what to do with it.  I'm learning a lot about my characters by having them interact.  I'm also figuring out pieces of the story that work...and don't work.  It's a lot of fun :)

But, writing about writing isn't actually why I came here... I'm here to vent.  And I'll do it in another entry, because it'd just be messy to put it here...

Sleepy feelings

There's this feeling I only get easily when I'm over-tired.  It's like butterflies in my heart..  It's a very fluttery and good feeling, though it's so delicate that I'm sure it could easily turn to crushing heartache.  My defenses are down, so I'm more susceptible to all the stuff around me.  I'm blaming haunting music and joyful music... and tomorrow I'll be writing out the scenes I outlined tonight.  I wish I could carry the fluttery feeling into my days.  And I really hope that I can remember the feeling in the morning so that my writing will come quickly.

This morning I decided that I need to stop thinking about killing off characters.  I like closure, and the quickest way to tie up loose ends is to kill everyone... that way there won't be any what ifs.  The thing is, I don't have much reason to kill people who matter this time.  I'm still not sure about happy endings; while I understand there is a formula for things, I also think that, no matter how surreal the reality is, it's still a reality...and I need to respect that.  I know all of the endings, and they're all a bit sad.  The last will at least feel complete... but I can already picture Ivy at the end; I can see her expression and know what she's feeling...and it's bittersweet.  I want to kill her to take away THAT suffering, but I can't...because there's still hope.  The hero doesn't have to die to create a legend... not all of her, anyway.

And even though I've decided not to kill her, and I'm certain of that... I've also decided that I'm sticking with third person limited.  I re-wrote the first chapter in first person, just to see how it felt.  There were some things that I thought were definite advantages, but when it comes down to it, I'm just tired of YA being written in first person.  And I don't want to limit the POV so much.  Sure, Ivy is interesting... but I like the idea of developing empathy in the ways that we do as people.  I read a great article earlier about how humans are feeling creatures - how we read those around us and feel with them - and how writing in third person allows us to have empathy in a way that first person does not.  First person is so much more tell than show, and I want show.  I want feel.

I'm going to read some more third person books to see the style in action.  Lately I've been reading a bunch of first person, because I read YA...blah.  I searched around for lists of third person YA speculative fiction, and some of them are really great (Cassandra Clare, for example).  I'll pick up a few of the other titles I found and go from there.  I have such an extensive reading list...and that's something that makes me VERY happy.  The last three days were spend with the Hex Hall series, and I really enjoyed the books.  They were short and fast-paced, with snarky characters (and the tall, dark, and handsome bad boy, of course).  The basics were all there, and yet, there was something original in the telling.  It was first person, but the person was interesting.  I love a good sarcastic character... laugh in the face of danger!  It wasn't deep, but there was a point in the third book that I was actually impressed by how deep it was in the heat of the moment... I wondered if it was intentional.  I wondered if the writer realized the power of the couple sentences about how the most terrible evils are those done by people who really think they're doing the right thing.

And I should sleep...before I get all political.  :)