Beneath a Broken Sky

It's finally here!

Quin is the newest generation in a long, proud line of Knights, but he less than lives up to his legacy. To earn his knighthood and escape the looming disapproval of his father, he accepts a mission far in the North. There he runs into Arria, an ancient dragon newly awakened, and Keeva, a half blood dragon whose word is as dubious as her birthright. The violent encounter with Arria and her servants leaves Quin's mentor dead, and him stranded far from the safety of the Knight's Guild. Keeva is his only ally, but she has a past she cannot escape. Quin finds a kindred soul in Keeva, but their growing friendship holds danger as well as hope.

Arria, her mate slain by Quin's ancestor, clings to the only thing she has left: grief-stricken revenge that threatens the survival of Knights and dragons alike. With Keeva's help, Quin must dig up a truth long buried and secrets that were never meant to be found. Both Knights and dragons need to fight together to defeat Arria, but in his attempt to unite these enemies, will Quin commit the ultimate sin for a Knight? To fall in love with a dragon.

Sound interesting? Click here to find out more.

Note: At the moment Beneath a Broken Sky is only available on Amazon.com. It will also be available from Barnes & Noble soon.

First draft of the year

I've started writing my first story of the year. This is a story that I started last year and stopped when I got stuck. Now I've come back to it, but I've had to make some hard choices to make it work.

This is the tricky part about rewriting a broken story. You really have to let everything be on the chopping block. Even things you love or things that you always thought were going to be in the story. To make it work, everything has to be able to be changed.

And I have changed just about everything. I kept my magic system, my hero and a couple locations, that's about it. Just about everything else had to change in one way or another. Now I'm hoping that those changes will make everything flow better.

I say "hoping" because I'm doing some twisted version of pantsing and plotting at the same time. The beginning is a bit fuzzy (though it's getting better because that's what I'm working on writing right now), some stuff in the middle is plotted out, as is the very end, but there's a huge gap towards the end where I have no idea what is going to happen. Hopefully it will come to me as I get to it.

And speaking of getting to it, I've decided to try a new plan for my writing time. I just finished listening to an RWA Conference lecture called "Fast Draft" (Candace Havens was the speaker). The idea is to do 20 pages a day for two weeks and you'll have a rough first draft. I do like the idea, but I've found using page numbers or word count as goals intimidates me and I freeze up and get nothing done.

So my plan is to do two solid hours of writing every day. One in the morning and one in the evening, or both in the morning, I don't care. I will get those hours in. No excuses. No whining.

Before I gave myself three months to finish this manuscript, but hopefully with this new plan I can fly through this draft and get it done a lot faster... Hopefully.

I'll be posting hours/word counts on Twitter and do a weekly update here (if I remember :-P).

As of today I have 5,119 words.

2012 the year we all die

So the Mayans say we're all going to die this year, but for tradition sake I decided to write up goals just in case the Mayans were wrong.

So I present my goals for 2012:

1) Read. A lot.
I was able to get 57 read this year and I hope to come close to that again in '12. I don't think I'm going to try and top 57 though. If I do, fine, but I'm not going to kill myself (see goal #8). I just want to try and read some every day.

2) Finish edits for Beneath a Broken Sky.

This one is actually very achievable, because I'm almost done. I just wasn't able to get it done in December. This makes a nice easy thing for my list too :-) I like easy.

3) Edit Dagen's story and get it out to beta readers

I really need to come up with a title for this story. The first draft of it is done. Hopefully in the revisions I can find the perfect title.

4) Finish writing 1 1/2 - 2 more novels

I've already got an idea for a sequel to Dagen's story and I possibly have another I can finish. I don't want to commit to getting 2 novel length stories done because I always seem to run into NaNoWriMo and it breaks my stride.

5) Survive NaNoWriMo

And speaking of NaNoWriMo, unless thing's change, 2012 will be my last NaNoWriMo. Both as an ML and as a participant. I love NaNo. I think it's a wonderful idea and it attracts lovely people, but to tell you the truth I think I've out grown it. I've written a couple novels outside of November, I know I have the discipline to write everyday on my own. I don't need the pressure of NaNo to get me to the finish.
I also like my pattern of writing/editing. I write book B while book A is sitting cooling. Then when book B is done, I go back and edit book A. Then I write a new book and the cycle starts all over again. In the last two years NaNo has fallen out of step with my cycle. I really don't like writing two books back to back. I find it draining. I like going back and forth between editing and writing. To do that I need to be on my own schedule, and November just doesn't fit.

6) Stop fussing over the &@^! blog
I like this blog, but it's driving me a little crazy. Sometimes I just can't come up with two or three posts a week to put up here. And I refuse to put up "filler" stuff. I'm sick of fretting over that. It's just not with the time I spend fussing over it (see goal #8). Especially when I could be spending that creative energy working on my next story.
So I'll be putting up posts when I feel like it. My tentative goal is two or three times a month. I might do more. I might do less.

7) Clean the house more then once every three months
Actually my house isn't quite that bad (mostly). This is more of a balance related goal. I tend to get so focused on one thing that I totally forget everything else. So this year I want to try and keep my life more balanced. I've already started doing this, but I want to continue it through the next year.

8) No Stress (This should really be #1)
This is my over all goal. If a certain activity/person stresses me out, I really need to evaluate if it/they are worth my time and mental energy. The answer will probably be no. Life is just too short to put up with people and things that stress me out and drain my energy.

And I think that's about it. I'm sure I'll come up with something else later, but this is enough for now.

Happy New Years everyone!

The color of fantasy

I found this quote by George R.R. Martin the other day and really loved it:

"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as
dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic
moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with
gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and
olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red
meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the
end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a
parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient
stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of
Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller
when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong
spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in
fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that
one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow
hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of
Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle
Earth. "

— George R.R. Martin

This expresses well why I love Fantasy so much and (I believe) the thing that non-fantasy readers don't understand. The biggest thing I hear them say is that "Fantasy is just a bunch of make believe. It's not real."

No. It's not real. And that's why I love it. It's not how the world is, it's how it should be. How it could be. Not necessarily the dragons and elves (though that would be cool). It's the courage and the love and the chance for anyone to make a difference. Those are the things that should be. Just because theses stories have wizards and magic doesn't make their meaning any less important.

Like G.K. Chesterton said:

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons
exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Hope you all have a happy Friday and a great weekend!

Picture from SXC.

Creativity feeds creativity

Last Friday I ran across a post by Ava Jae "Can you lose the ability to write?" I like what she says and to a point I do agree with her solution of pushing through and just do it. She writes:

"If you really want to write, if you really want to see your dreams come
true, you have to go out there and do it yourself. Fulfilled dreams don’t just
land on some lucky person’s lap—they’re chased down and snatched up by the ones
who aren’t afraid to put in the extra work and won’t stop until they see them
realized."

I agree that you need to go out and chase down your dreams. If I waited for inspiration to strike me before I started, my writing sessions would be few and far between. You have to have the self control and dedication to sit down and write.

That said, when I get stuck in a rut, or am having difficulties with a story, I find there are some things I need to do that don't necessarily involve pushing through with the writing.

Without fail, every time I come to a dry spot it's because my creative well is empty. I've been working on this novel so long I haven't had time to read a book just for enjoyment or watch my favorite movie again (I've already seen it before, why do I need to watch it again?). The only books I do read are on the craft of writing, or something about the publishing industry (there's a cheery read for you). I don't have time to have fun. I need to write, but nothing is coming.

Is writing always fun?

No.

But when I hit the point where none of what I was writing was fun, I realized that I had lost sight of why I really wanted to be a writer in the first place (Hint: it wasn't for the tweed suit, smoldering cigarette and half drunk bottle of wine... well, maybe the wine ;) ). I started writing because there was something about it that I love. Something that caught my eye and drew me in.
I started writing for the magic. That part of the writing that resonates deep within your soul. That connects with you. I see this in my favorite books and movies. The part that makes me cry. Makes me believe in true love. Opens my eyes to the world around me. Shows me the darkest parts of my own soul. Those are stories that I come back to and watch again and again. Because, even after seeing them a hundred times, I still feel that connection.

So what does this have to do with "writers block" (or whatever you want to call it)? The only way I've been able to break out of that staleness is to reconnect with things that inspire me. Not just stories. I love working in my garden. Watching my finches flutter and squabble over the bath when I put it in. Walking the dog on the back roads where there's nothing but bushes and squirrels to bother me. All theses things are important to filling that well. All of them. And sometimes we have to allow ourselves to indulge in them. That why I love Lani Diane Rich's classes and podcast so much. Those are the things she talks about and teaches. How to love the magic of your story.

Now here's the hard part. Having the self-knowledge to know when you've filled your well and should get back to work. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you need just a little more time or if you've moved on to stalling or have some kind of fear of finishing. Only you can decide that. You have to know yourself. Know what you love. Know what you fear. Know what you are and what you want to be.

It's hard. But no one ever said it would be easy.

So to come full circle, once your well is full you need to push and force yourself to find the time and write. I love how Ava put it:

"Don’t have the time? Make time. No one else is going to do it for
you."

And at the same time, force yourself to make time to do things that you enjoy. Writers have a tendency to feel guilty if they spend three hours looking for just the right songs for the soundtrack of your story or gluing little pictures onto a piece of mat board to make a collage. It's not waisted time. You're thinking about your story. You really are working. Then when you go to write, that creativity that you have been 'indulging' in will feed the creativity of your writing.

One thing flows into the other, we just have to keep the current moving.

Journals: Why I can't use them

(Lucy & Alastair, this is for you)

Journals. Those wonderful bundles of beautiful pages wrapped in leather, moleskin, plastic or cardboard (depending on how cheep you are).

I love journals. Particularly those fabulous leather bound ones with textured natural paper. I love them. LOVE. The problem... I just can't bring myself to use them.

It's the same every time. I go to the store, ogle and fondle each book. My fingers caress that one special journal and I clutch it to my chest as I make my way to the cash register. Then I get home, sit down ready to put my brilliant words onto theses beautiful pages. My pen hovers over the paper and... and... all those brilliant words suddenly seem dull and stupid. I can't put THAT on the first page! I need something poignant. Something inspirational. Something... better then what I can come up with.

Defeated, I put the journal on the shelf to wait for that striking bolt of inspiration. After a year or two I began to realize that I would never be able to use them. I was just too scared to make a 'mistake'. Of course the whole point of a idea notebook or journal is to jot down silly weird ideas that maybe you can use later. It's not supposed to be perfect, but I could never get over the fact that I paid $10, $15 or more for this @#&%! journal and I better damn well put something good in it to justify spending that much.

Soon I realized that all my best (and worst) ideas were written on the back of napkins, junk mail envelopes and wrinkled scraps of paper. Why was it so easy for me to write on those and not my fancy journal? Because they were cheep. I didn't feel pressured to write anything good, so I just wrote what I felt like. I let my creative juices flow because it's just a piece of junk mail, it's not like I can make it worse.

The next time I went to the store, instead of picking up a shiny leather bound beauty, I found the cheapest 5" x 8" notebook I could get. I got a three pack and brought it home. That was a couple years ago and as you can see from the picture, it's worked quite well for me. Each of those notebooks is filled with scribbles (and I mean FILLED). Some brilliant. Some, well, less so. But you can't get to the good stuff until you get the bad stuff out of your head. If you feel the pressure to put only good stuff in your beautiful journal, then maybe going simpler (and cheaper, I'm always for the cheep) will work better for you. I carry one with me everywhere now.

It's only a few dollars to give it a try (that's the beauty of it).

Done! (well, not really)

I finished the first round of edits for Beneath a Broken Sky Wednesday (yay!). In that round I went through and cut big scenes, added new ones and made sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Big stuff. I didn't bother with too much line editing at this point. If I saw something then I would fix it, but I didn't allow myself to obsess.

Now(proving how it's time for the paper edits/line edits. For this I like to print the whole thing out and slap it in a binder. There's just something different about having the fiscal paper to look at that makes you see things that you missed before. It's also cool to have tangible proof of all your hard work. On the computer you can look at the file size, but that doesn't have the same impact as slamming down 301 pages of solid story on your kitchen table.

As I move into this new round of edits I'm going to be focusing on my description. I'm one of those writers who (if she isn't careful) has characters talking in a white room. I don't like going on and on about the furniture or the trees or whatever else is surrounding them, but of course I need to have something there. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on.

I've found that it helps to pick one main thing to look for when going through a round of edits. If I try to fix everything all at once, I'll go crazy and the book will never be done. But if I just pick one, there's a much better chance that I'll actually fix that one thing and at the same time I won't go completely insane. Pick your battles and fight them to your fullest.


On another note, my desk is a mess again (well, messy for me at least). Scraps of paper, scissors, little pictures, note book pages with scribbles on them, a half drank cup of tea and sticky notes. That can only mean one thing... I'm almost ready to start writing a new story.

Proper care of seedling stories

New stories are like baby plants. They're fresh, beautiful, full of potential and incredibly delicate.

Every story starts the same. You (the writer) find a tiny little seed. It could come from anywhere. A song. A tear. A whispered word. A sunset over the water. Wherever it comes from though, this tiny little seed caught your eye and you picked it up.

Like most seeds it lays dormant for a while. It rolls and rattles around in your brain, then one day, it happens. A tiny little sprout pops up. It's your beautiful story. You just know it's going to grow into a beautiful prize winning rose or a mighty oak tree. And of course, being the proud little story growers that we are, the first thing we want to do is tell everyone we know about our new baby.

Unfortunately this can lead to disaster. Other writers know how fragile newly formed stories can be, but most non-writers don't have a clue. They come stomping into our little story garden often wearing the big clown shoes of “constructive criticism”.

"It's ok, but your heroin seems kind of phony to me."

Stomp!

"Shouldn't your plot be more realistic. This seems awfully cheesy."

Stomp!

"Hasn't that already been done before?"

Stomp! Stomp! STOMP!

Before you know it, that beautiful little seed has been trampled. You may be stubborn enough to keep caring for it. Maybe even write a few chapters. But no matter how well you hide them from others, you will always see the scars.

It's not totally the non-writers fault. In most cases, they are really trying to help. But criticism is not what a seedling story needs. It needs love, care and a little bit of privacy before it can shine to the world. If you absolutely NEED to tell someone about your new baby you need to lay down ground rules with them first.

a) No criticism.
None. Not one single word. Even if it's only a missed placed comma. Nothing.

b) Only positive feed back
If they like something and want to tell you, that's fine. As long as it's not something like "This is so wonderful, if you would only..."

c) No suggestions or further ideas.
This may sound strange, but it's easy to lose sight of YOUR ideas in a sea of ideas from others.
Non-writers can find seeds too, they just don't know how/don't want to take care of them or have the dedication to tend to them until they are a fully formed story. Often times theses non-writers will try to get you to take their seeds for them. Don't do it.
If you want to be polite tell them to write down the gist of their idea in a note book, then take that note book and set it aside until you are done with your story. If there idea is any good (sometimes they are, most times not) then you can take it from there.

d) And finally allow yourself to ignore any and all feed back.
If everyone loves this one idea, but you don't, cut it. This is your vision. Your idea. When push comes to shove, it's your butt in the chair. Your fingers on the keyboard. If you don't like it, don't write it.

Now after all that you must think I'm totally against all criticism in any form. Not true. Criticism is handy and healthy when the time is right. When your little tree has blossomed out into a full first draft, you will need to prune it. You need to climb up into those branches with a good sturdy pair of snipers and whip it into shape. At that point it helps to have someone standing back, telling you the best places to cut.

When a story is young, it can't handle that kind of trimming. Many times you don't even know what kind of plant it is yet, let alone the best shape to trim it to. Give it time. Let it simmer. Then type it out and let your love of this story guide you. Don't think about how you will have to edit all of this later. Just get it down on paper. Then, and only then, it will be big enough and sturdy enough to take some trimming (or, in many cases, major trimming).

Don't rush yourself and don't let anyone stomp on your dream.