Getting Into It

Listening to: Scary Kids Scaring Kids, "Degenerates"

When I first started my current project -- working titled Freya -- I was excited but wary. I really wasn't sure I could make it work. The original idea seemed like it couldn't go farther than novella territory, and I could only think of two possible ways it could all end, neither of which I liked at all (hint: both involved the death of a very important character). But I was so caught up in the narrator's voice, right from page 1, that I couldn't help myself. I had to see where it went. I had to follow her down her path for at least a while, because she was just that awesome.*

Then practicality (and uncertainty) kicked in, and I abandoned Freya for another project, one that had more potential but was infinitely scarier because it was several miles from my usual stuff. It still had some of the same elements, but was also far from my comfort zone. Also, it required a great deal of research, as well as a voice I wasn't sure I could handle yet.

Then, certain that I wasn't quite ready for that particular novel, I abandoned that for another idea. An awesome, fun, different idea. That's the one I'm doing for NaNo. And occasionally in there, I'd work on the sequel to to my last novel, or the first idea I came up with after I finished the last novel. That's right, folks--last winter/spring, I had no less than five things I wanted desperately to write.

But Freya's voice still called to me. I would occasionally, feeling like a little cheater, open up the document and read the first few pages, and next thing I knew I was adding to it. She's addictive, that one. And back and forth we went, until I started my job and realized I had to commit myself to just one novel--or go absolutely crazy.

I asked two people, both of whom knew the details of all three ideas, and they both said, without hesitation, "Freya."

Somewhere in all this, I'd taken Freya in a different direction, one that had far more potential. It wasn't easy--something about the project didn't lend itself to change very well. It took a lot of long showers to get there. But I was at least somewhat confident, once I found the right path, that it had some possibilities.

I never quite fell in love like I have with other novels, though. I was addicted, yes, and I enjoyed the writing, but something held me from falling headfirst into it all. That was a problem. I need that feeling, at least for the first 30k words. After that, it's a matter of, "Well, I've come this far, I pretty much have to finish." Because, you know, once you reach the middle, it's not as fun anymore--it's a long, hard slog to the finish line, tripping over your own feet the whole way.

Freya, somehow, always surprises me. She did it every time I stealthily opened up the document last spring, certain that her voice couldn't be as addictive as I'd thought. And she's done it again now.

Because, nearly 50k words in, I'm head-over-heels. I love this damn book.

What's the change? I don't know for sure. I added a character that I really like, and that helped. And the encouragement I've gotten from those two people who pushed me to focus on Freya has helped a great deal.** Also, I've shown the first page to my brother, who is decidedly not the YA paranormal romance type. He's more the Tom Robbins type, on the rare occasions that he even reads fiction these days. He forgot to stop at the end of page 1, continued on a few more pages, then kind of woke up and realized what he'd done. "I could definitely keep reading this," he said.

Yes, I thrive on outside approval. Hey, I'm a flawed human being. What can I say.

This writing thing never fails to surprise me. Every novel is different. Whereas my last one was like a teenage romance (in the writing experience, not the genre itself), all furious adoration and the hectic joy of first love, Freya has been more like an arranged marriage with a really great guy that I didn't know. I wasn't sure it was a good idea at first, and I tried to back away. But then people pushed me toward it, and I was drawn to the challenge, and the next thing I knew, I was committed. And it took me a while, but eventually I realized its potential. And got really, really excited.

So that's where I am, now. Seven months after I started the damn thing, I finally love it.

Took me long enough.



*This is not boasting. I take no credit for her. She is awesome all on her own, with no help from me. I did not create her--she sprang fully formed from my head, like Athena from Zeus. No, I'm not comparing myself to Zeus.

**One night not too long ago, I was writing while TH was reading Twilight (yes, I'm a mean wife who makes her husband read YA when he'd rather be reading Palahniuk or Myron Cope's autobiography). I asked him how it was going, and his gaze slid to my laptop. "What are you working on?" he asked. "Freya, of course," I answered. A look of longing crossed his face. "I want to read that. Hurry up and finish." Oh, my cold little writer's heart grew three times in size that night!

When the Voices Won't Stop

Listening to: Chronic Future, "Shellshocked"

There. After a week of polishing and shining and finding typos, and sweating over this manuscript, it's off to the editor who requested it at the conference.

I made many changes, not any huge ones but several that fixed some minor problems people brought to my attention,* and quite a few that make me feel like this thing is as good as it's gonna get anytime soon.

All these changes required me to dive back into the book, and into my protagonist's head, with full force. I was concerned, at first, that I would find this difficult. HA! I'm so funny. Because I had the opposite problem. Once I got started, I couldn't get her voice out of my head. All week, she's been talking and talking, giving me bits of dialog and narration that weren't there before. Verbose little brat, my protagonist.

Every time I was in the car or the shower, there she was. I woke up this morning to her voice, as she gave me a few last bits to put into the manuscript before I sent it out. She just wouldn't shut up.

So now I have her voice in my head, and I figure I may as well use it. I think I'll get back to work on book two this weekend, since none of the projects I've tried to start in the past few months have really panned out. I've always been against starting a sequel when you don't know if the first one even has a chance--it seems like such a waste of time to me. But this book changed all that, because I really want to write more of this character's story.

And if nothing else, it'll distract me from the waiting game that has begun, yet again. Distractions--I need them.


*Thanks Tia!

Back from the Grave (metaphorically speaking)

I feel like I haven't written any substantial, interesting blog posts in weeks...

That might be because I haven't, but the jury's still out on that one.

I kind of figured out why it's been so quiet here. I haven't really had a project to talk about and groan over and inspire interesting posts. I've had a few ideas, here or there, but they all got abandoned or petered out after, say, 20k words.

Then finally, a few weeks ago, something in my brain clicked, and I decided what I wanted my next book to be about. I had to wait, though--it was one of those ideas that kind of shimmers at the corner of your eye, but if you look at it directly, it'll disappear.

Yes, some of my ideas are like eye gunk. Beautiful analogy.

Anyhow, then I sat down last Saturday, finally feeling ready to brainstorm. And the idea, which had been about three words in my head, ("about a cult"), just came pouring out onto the paper. Suddenly all these characters were popping up in my head, and plot threads were branching out, and possibilities I'd never even considered were appearing.

And let me tell you...most of it is pretty scary.

Not because the idea itself is scary, but because many facets of it are going to involve stretching myself to places I've never stretched before. This is a whole new ballgame for me, folks, and I don't really know the rules.

For instance, I'm setting it outside of Pennsylvania. Every book I've written has been set here, because this is my comfort zone, and I know it. But the very nature of this book dictates that it must be set somewhere else. And I'm going to have to create that setting, not out of whole cloth but from scraps of other cloths, so to speak.*

Also, massive amounts of research will be required. I'm actually pretty good at research--I've been a college student and a journalist, so that skill has been honed pretty well--but it'll still be a giant pain. A pain I think I'll enjoy, though.

As if that isn't enough, I'll have to channel a completely different voice for the protagonist. I know this is confusing, because I mentioned in my little asterisk note below that the novel is set in the present day, but her voice will have to come from about 300 years ago. One of those it-is-but-it-isn't things.**

There are many other things, smaller things, that will crop up and make my life difficult, I'm sure. This will not be an easy book to write (of course, there's no such thing). I've explained the idea to my two sounding boards,*** though, and they're both very excited. Both of them think it could be really great. Thus, I'm utterly terrified that I'm not going to do it justice.

That's the name of the game, though, right? Do me a favor and scroll down to the bottom of this blog and read the quotation from John Irving posted there.

That's going to be my life for at least the next year.

Let the terror begin...now.


*I realize this is confusing. Let's put it this way: the setting will be in the real world, located near places that really exist, but it won't really exist. Less confusing? No? Oh well.

**No, it's not a time-travel novel. Not my thing. I'll leave you to wonder what on earth I mean, because I'm not going to explain it fully.

***Until the novel is well under way, I will not tell the full idea to anyone else. Ideas in their baby stages are very fragile, shiny things, and if exposed to too many eyes, they can lose their luster or break into a million pieces. Learned that the hard way, I did.