At least the bones are right?

I use the strangest comparisons when I try to explain why I think the revisions to Spirit Games are so intensive.  The other day, I said “well, all the bones are in the right place.  It’s like Frankenstein’s monster.  The bones are right, but all the meat and potatoes need to be replaced.”  I wasn’t sure if I was comparing myself to a mad scientist or a cannibal planning People Stew.

Essentially though, that’s where my problem’s lied.  I had to step back and reconsider how my the rules of my supernatural world worked, and how they’d impact the characters.  Oh, and there was the TEENSY detail of how I was setting up the wrong person to be the Big Bad.  I mean, it happens.

When I was drafting and revising, I got so caught up with the characters and how they’d react to certain stimuli, that I completely forgot about things like setting and plot.  So what if chapter 13 totally contradicts what I said in chapter 2.  I’ll fix it in revisions.  It’s great that I knew my characters inside and out (hint – the insides are squishy) but I forgot about how everything was working together.

I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t be doing that again.  Next book that’s not already outlined will spend some time in percolation, and I’ll really try and look it all over to see where the problems lie.  Because this has NOT been fun.

In other news, a bunch of writers have sworn off Twitter for the week.  November 1st through the 7th.  And I didn’t realize how much I actually missed Twitter once I wasn’t tweeting all the time.  Its an easy distraction, a way to fill in time between things on the agenda, or as an escape once a certain amount of work’s gotten done.  So for a week I’m not going to have that, and we’re going to see how much work I get done.

Good luck to everyone else who’s going on the Twitter sabbatical this week!

Happy Halloween!

I’ve been a bit disappointed in the Halloween programming this year.  I feel like once October 1st hits, all stations should start playing 24/7 Halloween programming.  Is that too much to ask?

One of my favorite creepy things.  It’s Michael Emerson, who plays Ben on Lost, reading nursery rhymes.

 

 

Now I’m off to go watch a really scary movie:  Bring It On!

 

 

Looking Back: the Agent Phone Call

Just a random collection of questions I wished I would have asked once upon a time.  In hindsight, I think they might have illuminated a lot about prospective agents.

1.  Are you pro-snow, or do you secretly make voodoo dolls for snow and torture them in your closet? I wouldn’t say I have a hatred of snow.  I don’t think that fairly covers exactly how I feel about snow.  I think the closest way to explain it is to pretend that Snow is equal parts Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow, I am Kevin Spacey, and the movie is Se7en.  “What’s in the box,” indeed!  I think it’s important to find someone who hates snow just as much as I do.

2.  What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mine happens to be vanilla.  Any permutation of vanilla.  So you might think that the more wacky your choice for favorite ice cream flavor might work against you.  But this is a trick question.  There’s no WRONG flavor of ice cream – the only wrong answer is that you don’t like ice cream at all.  You could even be allergic to dairy, or be lactose intolerant, and that would make sense.  We all love things that hurt us.

3.  Are you a diehard fan of Buffy/Lady Gaga/any other pop culture reference I may throw your way? Because frankly, nothing improves my opinion of you than knowing you agree with me.  And being able to spend hours babbling on about how much better Buffy got when she got a haircut in season 6, or how awesome the new Gaga single is…well that can only be a match made in heaven.  Who cares if I haven’t finished the edits I promised, if I’ve almost finished my Halloween costume of <insert randomness here>.

Note:  this post is severely tongue in cheek.  Embrace the sarcasm.  My agent is awesome, and though we agree to disagree about our feelings on Snow, I’m still a fan.

What are some tongue in cheek, Not Serious questions you would have asked prospective agents?  Btw, avoid the “boxers or briefs” standard.  I know most of us are DYING to know, but seriously.  Some information you just can’t burn out of your brain.

How to Create Your Own Fake Town

So one of the things I’m a fan of in novels is the “fake town.”  Also known as the “fictional city,” the “imaginary inlet,” or the “hypothetical hot spot.”  Or maybe I’m the only one who thinks of them like that?  Ahem.  Okay, moving on.

So what’s the point of crafting your own town to set the story in, versus using an established city.   I think the main benefit is the ease with which you can write.  If you use an established city, then you’re expected to do more research.  But if you create your own town, you can just make it all up as you go.  Now there are pros and cons to this.

The pros are obvious:  you can build up the town however you like, and whatever’s going to make your job easier.  It has whatever history you want it to have.  Who cares if there’s not an island west of Seattle, or there’s already a town called New Paltz where you were planning to locate your story.  Or maybe the town in your head is just like this town you drove through in Delaware, but your novel’s supposed to take place in Western PA.  These are all things that can be fixed by creating your own location.

What I’m Up To

I keep meaning to work up a real blog post, but despite all the best intentions, I haven’t actually finished one just yet.  But at some point in the near future, I’ll do a whole post on Creating Your Own Fake Town.

And there will be pictures.  I can’t promise there will be spider monkeys, but there will definitely be pictures.

For the moment, I’m really just focusing on getting Spirit Games as close to done as I can.  I set myself a deadline of Halloween – but major changes to the first half of the book really have required a lot of work.  The last ten days alone have been spent on the same twenty percent of the whole thing.  The bright side, though, is that a lot of the issues I was having with the story (being too dense on backstory and confusing) have been alleviated in all the right ways.  The fact that I have my own personal cheerleader (hi Tiffany!) has helped tremendously.

This is, officially, the last time I write a book without a road map.  Had I had a road map, I probably wouldn’t have wasted so much time writing the WRONG stuff, and instead had a halfway decent, maybe not GREAT story.  Writing the WRONG stuff, though, requires quite a bit of work in rewriting, cleaning, polishing, taking apart, reassembling, repolishing, squinting, sighing, and grumbling.  Not necessarily in that order.

After that, my wish list is pretty simple.

• Finish Witch Eyes sequel (almost one quarter complete)
• Outline possible Spirit Games sequel
• Witch Eyes edits (whenever they come in, they go to the top of the list)
• Send Spirit Games out to betas and then to agent.
• Deep breath.

I’ve been kindof smart, and whenever I’ve had an Idea for something that could have book-merit, I’ve taken the time to flesh it out enough that I can go back later, and have a good sense of where I was going with all that.  I have a confrontation scene on one project, and a whole outline/concept for another.  I’m not planning on working on anything new until after I get my wish list completed, but stranger things have happened.  Maybe I’ll just keep adding to the list.

Just a Taste

It’s been a pretty strange week.  But now that things have settled down, I’m trying to get back into old routines.  Writing being one of them.

The current WIP, which I’m calling Spirit Games, is in this perpetual state of “almost there.”  Once I figure out what I’m doing with this beginning, I think I can finally start making some headway on the rest of it.  And then hopefully send it out to some of my betas and get feedback. At this point, I’d just be so happy to have a finished, workable draft.  This book has been a pain in the butt to write.  And I think it’s my perfect lesson for not writing by the seat of my pants again.  It may work for some people, and its worked out okay for me in the past, but this time it really just fell apart.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying something different with new ideas that pop into my head.  Inevitably, I’ll get stuck for a moment on what I’m working on, and then while I’m trying to wrap my head around the problem, suddenly this new and shiny idea pops up and begs me to work on it.  So I’ve come up with a simple solution.  If it’s a voice thing, like a character is just talking about something, I’ll sit down and write it for a bit.  Just to see where it goes.  Or if it’s a concept, like “what would happen if X happened during Y” then I play around with the ideas and see where it goes.  I’ll look for pictures that inspire the ideas I’m thinking of for the new work, think about music, research setting.  All very minor things that go into files for when I’m ready later.

At the moment, I’ve got two or three really solid ideas that I’d love to work on.  Except I can’t.  Because of the monster known as Spirit Games.    So the sooner that’s out to Betas, the sooner I can start flipping through these other ideas and see which one wants to be worked on the most.

And in the meantime, I’m trying to figure out a way to hit up the SCWBI New York conference at the end of January.  Because of a lot of my friends are going, and I think it would be a good time.

Witch Eyes Info

Since a couple of people have asked now, I figured it was a good time to put up a little something about what Witch Eyes is about for those who don’t know.

Witch Eyes is a cross between Smallville and a modern, gay Romeo and Juliet.  A deadly supernatural feud divides the town of Belle Dam, Washington.  In the search for the secrets of his past, Braden returns here after abandoning the only family he’s ever known.  His gift of the ‘witch eyes,’ something he considers a curse, makes his magic exceptional, but is killing him a little more each time he uses it.  He’s immediately gets drawn between the two rival witch dynasties, each of whom hope to use him for their own ends.   His life grows even more complicated when the one guy he’s interested in turns out to be the only guy in town he can’t have.

There’s also a book trailer link in the sidebar, if you’re interested.  It was done by my friend and writing partner, Leah Clifford.  There’s also a link to her blog so you should check it out!

Edit:  You can read the PM announcement of the deal over on my fantastic, amazing agent’s blog over here.

An Exciting Announcement!

I am beyond thrilled to announce that WITCH EYES and a sequel are going to be published by Flux starting in the summer of 2011!

First of all, I could NOT have done this without my incredible agent, Colleen Lindsay.   She’s kinda like that big sister I never had, who ADORES teasing me and doing the phone/email equivalent of mussing up my hair.  But she’s believed in Braden’s story since the beginning, and has been so great along the way.  I mean, this is a woman who told me that when she was reading the full, she shouted at the manuscript while out in public when the characters were riiiight on the cusp of doing something.  C’mon, how could you NOT enjoy that?

And I’m so thrilled to be working with Brian Farrey at Flux.  Even when he was sick, he was still incredibly funny and insightful when I talked to him.  Plus, when I asked him his preferred way of communicating with his authors?  OUIJA BOARDS.  Is that not the most awesome answer ever?

WITCH EYES was the book that, while I was writing it, I knew it was The One.  So I’m so incredibly thankful and happy to have found that I’m not the only one who thinks its good!

So thank you to everyone over the years for all the kind words and support!!!!

Why Music is So Important

For me, a project’s never really “in progress” until I have the music.  The soundtrack.  The beat.

I may mess around with certain scenes, or lines of dialogue.  But I need the music to really get into the groove of the story.  For me, having a soundtrack that can play while I write is integral.  It doesn’t really matter after awhile though – I end up tuning it out and dealing with the story.  But in the beginning, its like a shortcut into that world.

My typical playlist is 10-20 songs, usually from a variety of artists.  The majority of it is usually rock – anywhere from hard rock to more symphonic rock – with the occassional pop artist or slow song in there for those important scenes.  Typically during a draft, the list will gain or lose songs as certain ones start drawing me OUT of the story, instead of drawing me IN.  Most of the time since I don’t even hear the music anyway (thank you headphones), I’ll know a song needs to go because EVERY time it comes on it hits me like a sour note.  Pulls me right out the story.  Or just plain annoys me.

I think music can serve a similar purpose to the way it serves television.  Having certain songs playing in the background of a show or movie can help set a particular mood, can evoke a particular emotion, or (for the fast paced or club music) can even get your blood pumping and ready for more.  And that’s a big reason why music’s so important for me when I’m working on something new.

Because music becomes that bridge, that I need to go from “hey this is an idea” to “hey, this is something worth pursuing.”  And it can quickly turn from “I like this song” to “my character likes this song.”  It’s just another way to get a connection with your character.  Maybe.

And in other news, these last few blog posts have all been either “friend-y” or advice-y because I’ve been pretty much keeping it low key and nothing interesting happens to be going on.  If that changes, trust me I’d love to blog all about it.

Fun Things

My friend Courtney was interviewed by Realm Lovejoy on her blog.  Check it out!

And if you’ve ever had a conversation with your cupcake, and felt annoyed when it wouldn’t talk back?  Well, your prayers have been answered!  Victoria Schwab, author of Near Witch (recently acquired by Hyperion), answers questions while getting a head start on her Halloween-ing!