Countdown to NaNo

Only two whole days left until NaNo 2010. I will try to be more diligent about posting excerpts than I was last time. Actually, I don't think there are any Providence excerpts from last year... And since this year's novel, Haven is a sequel to Providence, how about an excerpt now?

     I stuff the purple sweatshirt into the top box, the one marked “winter,” and wipe a tear from my cheekbone. Damnit, Damien, he could always reduce me to tears.

     A movement from across the room catches my eye and I blink and look away. I definitely don't want to see him in his early-morning glory, his plaid boxers hanging loose from trim hips and his brown hair sloppy and sexy.

     “What are you doing up?” he asks, his voice husky with sleep.

     “Packing.” As if he can't tell.

     “It's six A.M.” He runs a hand through his hair and squints his eyes.

     “The sooner I start, the sooner I can finish,” I retort, throwing a brown cardigan over the purple sweater.

     “I'll help, babe.” he says, his voice soothing.

     I turn and glare at him, feeling heat rise in my cheeks. “You've helped enough, don't you think?”

     He doesn't even have the decency to blush. “I'm sorry, Quinn. You know I love--”

     I put my hand up, palm facing him, and cringe. “If you loved me, I wouldn't have found her in our bed, would I have?”

     Damien takes a few steps toward me, and the only sound I can hear is the rustle of his cotton boxers and the soft padding of his bare feet against the hardwood floor of our second-story apartment. “It was a mistake, Quinn. How many times do I have to tell you?”

     “Mistakes don't happen three nights in a row.” I turn my back to him and push the cardboard flap of the box down onto the clothes. “Mistakes don't scream your name over and over while I'm walking up the stairs, and you don't tell mistakes you wish you were marrying them instead of me.”

     He nods, his lips pursed. He knows I'm right. Why bother trying to argue? “At least let me help.”

     I shake my head. “I'm almost done.”

     “Where are you going”?

     I shrug my shoulders. “I don't know. But I'll call when I get there so you can send the rest of my stuff. Unless you changed your mind, and you want it all gone now.”

     “Don't be silly, Quinn. You can't pack up four years in a day and fit it all in your little car.” He laughs like he just made a joke instead of a disconcerting statement about my life. “But really, Quinn. You're running out of money; I know you were thinking of finding a job after the wedding, if you couldn't get another book written soon.”

     I ignore the jab at my career and look at the boxes before me. “I can finish the rest myself.”

     “I'll make coffee,” he mutters, walking toward the open kitchen.

     I watch him walk away, toward the countertop I painted last summer and the refrigerator covered with pictures of us. Four years of pictures, and not one memory that isn't painful. I wipe another tear from my face and scowl. “I'd rather do this alone”

     He finishes the coffee in silence and retreats to the bedroom we've shared for three years. The door slams with a finality beyond my imagination. I guess it's finally over.

...More thoughts on Haven, plotting, Providence, and revising to come!

Letting creativity take over

I just had an epiphany.

Providence does not suck!

OK.. it still might. But not for the reason I was thinking.

Let me clarify that I immensely enjoyed writing the first 75% of Providence and when I reread it after a few months away, I loved it so much I started finishing it immediately.

But then I hit this bump. The same one that made me stop writing the first time. It was unconscious, really, because I just knew something was "off," but I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

And I finally figured it out.

See, I started writing this book for NaNoWriMo 2010, and I did so with a very limited idea of the book I wanted to write. This debate (the "plotters" vs. "pantsers") is a completely different story and will be saved for another time, as will the whole validity of the NaNo experience (suffice it to say, I am participating for my 3rd year this year, so my stance = Yay NaNo!). Anyhow. Initially, this was my premise:

When Quinn, a writer, heads South for sea-side inspiration for her next novel, she encounters a small town where strange things occur. In the town of Providence, Florida, Quinn meets Joss, a potential love interest who also happens to have the supernatural ability to control a person's future with his words. The problem is, Joss doesn't know he's doing it. He accidentally sets Quinn's fate into motion, and they must race against the clock to reverse the horrible events Joss' words set into motion.

Sounds pretty awesome, right? Even now, as I write that (off the top of my head), I'm thinking that would be a pretty interesting book to read! However, that's not the book I wrote. This is more like what I wrote (well, "am writing" since it's not 100% done yet):

When Quinn discovers her fiance cheating on her, she packs up her life and heads South, hoping to find inspiration to start over - not only with her life, but with her disastrous second novel. She stops in the small town of Providence, Florida, where everyone knows everyone else's business and the natives conveniently ignore the siren song that keeps Quinn up at night. Quinn instantly makes a few friends, including Ellie, who can control technology, and her twin sister Amelia, who uses her ability to become invisible to fuel the local gossip market. Then there's Joss, an abrasive but attractive recent newcomer himself, who doesn't realize he has the power to control people's futures with his words. Joss acknowledges that the compulsion he felt to move to Providence means he probably has a latent ability too, but he's not too concerned with figuring out what it may be. Meanwhile, he's sealing fates left and right and no one is the wiser.

But this is the least of the townspeople's problems, because something is making the natives - most noticeably Amelia - lose control over their abilities. When Quinn's meager assets freeze and she decides to scrap her horrible sophomore novel and start over with only three weeks left before she loses her contract, she's desperate for any help she can get. Which is exactly what her ex-fiance, Damien, wanted. And his appearance in Providence coincides with Amelia's inability to control herself.

Meanwhile, Joss' ability to manipulate the future is of no concern to anyone, and they take their time figuring out that he can do it in the first place. Quinn and her new friends try to figure out why their powers keep fritzing while Quinn debates between staying in Providence, penniless, or going back home with a man who claims to be sorry for his sins. The only looming deadline is the one set by Quinn's editor, and the only person who seems to be in much danger is Damien, the "bad guy."

You'll notice the novel I actually wrote took up more space, because when I started the novel, my ideas were very vague. Therein laid the problem. And when I realized Joss was becoming Mr. Rebound instead of Mr. Fate Sealer, I got scared. The novel wasn't going in the direction I wanted it to, at all. It was more casual, a lot less dark, and not at all creepy and fantasy-y. I sucked.

But alas, I don't suck! I simply didn't write the novel I set out to write. And I realized, just now, that that's OK. The novel I'm writing has its flaws, and will require at least one round of in-depth revision to work them out. But... I just have to adjust my mindset. Really, in the end, that's what this is about.

I think I was so set in Joss' ability and the dangers it could cause that I lost the bigger picture - the possibilities of a town full of supernatural people. Why are they supernatural? Don't know. Why are they drawn to Providence, or don't bother to leave their quaint haven? Don't care. Can Joss' power cause a lot of damage before he gets it under control? You betcha - but Damien's can cause even more. And that's the direction I'm going to take these last few chapters in. Joss' ability, and Quinn's emerging one, are still open to play with in the sequel. Which means that I may play around with my first idea more in the second book, because I've given myself room to do that.

The lesson I learned here was that ideas in creative writing need freedom to explore and to change and morph as they please. Backing them into a corner created by vague ideas of what the story SHOULD be about doesn't give your characters the room to fully develop. Could I have written the original version of Providence I set out to write on 11/1/09? Sure. Would it have been as good as the version I'm writing now - 'cause I do really like it. Probably not. It may have been good - hell, it may have been great. But it wouldn't have lived up to its potential. And now that I'm realizing that I haven't written a sucky book, my book just took on a life of its own, I think I can finish it and feel satisfied. And then start prepping for Providence 2... but leaving plenty of room for my ideas to change as I go!

What's my plot?

I have this nasty habit of starting way too many things and not finishing any of them. Cases-in-point: Isaac's Eyes. Vaampyr. Providence.

But that doesn't stop me from having ideas, and what's an idea without at least some brainstorming around it?

I've had two short stories published this summer with Pill Hill Press - "Last Rites," in Haunted, and "Evergreen", in Fem Fangs (find them here: http://www.pillhillpress.com/books.html). And these two stories were not sitting around on my hard-drive, waiting for a publisher to find them. No, I wrote them because I saw an call for submissions with vague enough (yet specific enough) theme descriptions that I decided to drum up some ideas then plot them out. And I'm glad I did, obviously. So, I can't completely discount my ideas just because I'm working on something else (or several "something elses") right?

Which brings me to my thought.

I have an idea, one that's been churning for a while, and Pill Hill is accepting submissions for an anthology that fits the bill of my idea.

The problem is, my idea is vague. It's a world, and character, and a few specific scenes throughout, and the beginnings of an idea for a plot. But I have no idea what kind of supernatural beings will take over my setting, whether they will be peacefully (somewhat, because they can never completely be peaceful!) co-exist with the humans or just decimate them all, how my MC runs into hem, or basically anything else that helps me get the ball rolling.

So at the moment I have snow in July and a woman with a cool name in an indescript job. Sounds like I have my work cut out for me!

A friend of mine linked me today to Holly Lisle's mini plot clinic, which is free, and I've actually done it before (on a very basic level, as in: lesson 1), and it was helpful. So, I think I'll give it a whirl with Unnamed Urban Fantasy story (which I'll call UUF for now!) in mind. On a side-note, I was thinking that my NaNoWriMo novel this year will be Providence 2 (with a much cooler name) but maybe it'll be UUF... hmmm...

I can't reproduce anything from the plot clinic. It says so on the first page ☺ But it's full of exercises and ideas so basic I can't believe I never thought of a story that way before - and I think it might help. The whole (as in, not-mini) plot clinic book has a quote that really struck me today as I'm staring at my poorly outlined story, and I thought it was a simple enough idea I can post it.

For all you writers out there, remember this (courtesy of Holly Lisle):

Content is not logic’s strong point. Logic will not give you passion. It will not give you heart. It will not give you magic.

That's it. Passion, heart, magic - that's a plot. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's where it starts. So with that in mind, I'm going to do a few exercises and see if I can make some magic.

PS -- the weather's awesome, so I might do this outside. Gotta love early October!! ♥

The Road to NaNoWriMo 2010

I've been working on my NaNoWriMo09 novel a bit. Really wish I had it done by now, but 2010 has really kicked me in the ass for a while. I think things are back on track now, but my writing has been severely lacking.

Good thing NaNoWriMo10 is right around the corner! Only 3 months away. Which seems like a long time, til I remember that I really want to finish Providence before starting a new NaNo novel (though I say this every year and never get the old novel finished before starting a new one). And I need to start thinking of a story for my '10 novel! I also want to make a cover for both. Err, rather, have my wonderful graphic designy husband make a cover for both :)

I think I'll post a bit from Prov soon. An excerpt, if you will. And set some goals for my last 30,000 or so words I want to write on it by Halloween. That's only a little over 333 words per day for the next almost-90 days. I'm sure I can pull that off! I mean, in the last two years I've successfully written over 50,000 words on a new novel in 30 days. Of course, neither of them have endings...

Enough procrastinating. I'm going to write. At least 400 words, before dinner. Yippee!

Finals and Writing

I'm making a small amount of headway toward finishing Providence. But to be honest, getting sick the first week of December and having finals the second and third weeks makes finishing a new novel tough. But I'm trying to work on it a little at a time so I don't lose momentum. Hopefully after my last final (A&P at 6pm on the 16th) I will get to finish it by the 31st!!

Finals... ugg. Any college student out there knows I don't even need to say anymore. But I will. Finals are actually going quite well. I have a portfolio for creative writing, a presentation and paper for linguistics, a non-cumulative test for A&P, and a website for web-writing. The website is due tomorrow so after I turn it in I can concentrate on Monday's presentation for linguistics then Wednesday's papers and exam. I'm loving web design, though I wish I had more graphics to work with from the company.

I'm also trying to finish my application to the University of Floriday graduate program and compile some pieces to send to IUPUI's literary magazine, Genesis. I'm working on a poem I'm calling Sophia's Song, which fans of IE will appreciate, and revising a short story I wrote two years ago that has been rejected by numerous magazines.

I'm getting caught up on bills since Mike made a fat paycheck on the 11th, but it'll still take us a bit to dig all the way out of the trenches of debt. It's hard keeping my head up, but I'm managing.

So that's the third week of December, 2009 in a nutshell. Wow, the year's gone by fast!!!

November

November 2009 FLEW by! I completed NaNo, reaching 50K words on the 28th, and am slowly working my way toward the end of my new novel, Providence. Finals are around the corner and I'm hunkering down to finish a web site for Insanity Pro Wrestling, a creative writing portfolio, a paper and presentation on the history of the English language, and get a smashing grade on my A&P final since I bombed the last test and watched my chances of getting an A go down the drain :( But hey, I wrote 3/4 of a novel, right?

Other things on my mind, in random order:

I ♥ Buffy.

I absolutely despise the little dog that lives in the house next door. I live on a corner so my backyard meets with three others, and all three houses have little dogs. They all meet at the corner (my dog included, when he feels like playing outside) and bark at each other. But, my dog isn't in the mix usually. And even when the other dogs aren't out, the one right beside my house is outside All. Damn. Day. And barks. ALL. DAMN. DAY.

I am getting over being sick. Monday was awful, and I thought for sure I had a severe flu. But by Tuesday it was just a nasty head/chest cold. Today, Friday, I feel much better, with just some sinusy stuff still going on.

Of course, I have to go pick up Austin from school in a couple hours, and I just found out that he has bronchitis and a sinus infection. ... Here's to being sick again next week!

Christmas is on the way but once again, we won't have the money to really do much.

Mike got a job!! Of course, we're still late on rent. But the landlord's pretty cool and says it's no big deal. And we won't be able to use any of his first paycheck for Christmas. It's just a bit too little, too late for that.

I ♥ Providence. ☺

5 months and 5 days til graduation!

I hate snow. I loathe it. It should be illegal. It hasn't snowed here yet, but it's going too.

Why Indiana?!?!

And I'm off to do some homework.