KidLit.com’s Play by Play Narration

I saw this blog over at KidLit.com this morning and had to have one of those good, sit back and laugh at myself moments.  If you’ve written anything at all, you’ve probably fallen into this trap.  I did when I was trying to figure out showing vs telling – and failing.  I still do it when I’m tired or unmotivated but keep plodding along and sticking words on a page.  So, I’m taking a page from Janice Hardy and sharing a snippet of the blog below.  I highly suggest checking out the rest of the blog and following it.

It’s time to get back to business with a craft-related post. I’ve been reading some manuscripts where the writers lapse into what I always call “play-by-play narration.” It’s the narrative equivalent of a chronological grocery list of events:

First we did this. Then we did that. He did this, and then he did that. After that, we did this. And then, that. A little bit later, we went and did such and such.

As a writer, it’s not just your job to transcribe what you imagine happens in a character’s day and think that you have yourself a plot.

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Weekly Check-In

I feel as if I’ve already lost with this update.  Mostly because I’ve just finished several hours of shopping and assembling my new writing space.  I’m writing up a post about it and posting it – er – Saturday, I think.  I’m not too certain right now.  So, this will be quick!

Blogging.

I learned this week that I need to blog about manners, and current events.  I quadrupled my hits on the days those posts went up, and I continue to get several hits on those as the days go by.  I’m surprised, but it’s interesting.  I’ve also got the rest of my topical blogging for March almost ready.  I need to do edits and some preparation and linkage, but eh, it’s all good!

Revising.

I went over the novella I wrote a few weeks ago this last week.  In my head when I wrote it the story was sickeningly sweet and cute.  Rereading it I didn’t feel quite the cuteness factor – le sigh.  I’ll be working on that later.  My revising goals in March are changing around my priorities.

Plotting.

I’ve been watching Paranormal State to help give me more ideas.  I think I have a good grasp on some of the ideology behind the paranormal workings in the horror story I’ll be writing in a month or two.  I really need to get this other protagonist profile done for my Warrior Writer group.  I’m having to do double the work since I have to protagonists.

Writing.

Working on one project has me getting a lot more done.  Though I really want to be super, uber productive, it’s better with this focused approach.

Project: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: I’ve broken through the novel set up part of the book.  It’s the beginning where everything starts rolling and I’ve hit the first big conflict which brings the hero and heroine into play in close quarters.  I’m a little nervous about their lack of interaction so far but I’m hoping that in the end, it works out.

What I read…

• Magic Bleeds, Kate Daniels #4 by Ilona Andrews
• Accidentally Catty, Accidental friends #5 by Dakota Cassidy
• Enemy Within, Enemy #1 by Marcella Burnard
• Deadly Lies, Deadly #3 by Cynthia Eden

And that’s my super quick update for the last week.  Tomorrow I’m recapping the month and talking goals.

World Building Series Wrap Up

I hope that if you’ve read my series on World Building, that you’ve gotten something out of it.  Writing it helped me think about a lot of the things I’m working on, so I hope it was mutually beneficial for all of us.  World Building can be tough, grueling work in order for everything to mesh well.  Think of all the work that went into creating something like Tolkien’s Middle Earth or C.S. Lewis’ Narnia or Rowling’s Harry Potter.

Each story starts with an idea,  a point where you take the leap and jump into things.  I hope your journey is as exciting as mine have been!

Check back on Wednesday when I talk about my next series of topical blogs.

Books I bought this week.

I’m going to devote my weekends to laid back book banter.  Since getting my eReader for my birthday in December my book buying habits have changed a lot.  I don’t buy and stockpile books as much as I was – because with the eReader I don’t have to search for that elusive book one of that series I’ve so been wanting to start.  But I still buy plenty of books.  This week was a huge exception to that rule, because my friends and I raided a Borders that’s closing.  This is going to be a long list, I apologize, but fellow book lovers will enjoy it with me.

Here is what I bought this week:

• Deadly Lies by Cynthia Eden – This is her third book in the Deadly series.  It’s all about a team of serial killer investigators who track down the true monsters in the world.  Super action, lots of wondering who the killer is and where he will strike next and chemistry between the two main characters.  I’ll be checking out on Sunday to read this!
• Green Eyed Demon by Jaye Wells – The third in her Sabina Kane series! Woohoo!  It’s about vampires and mages battling it out for dominion and Sabina’s caught between the two worlds.  As a child who is of both people, she has  lots of tough decisions which aren’t helped by her saucy mouth and prickly disposition.  Oh, and she also has a demon sidekick, who is a hairless cat.
• Books 1-3 of Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, and An Artificial Night) – I’ve won R&R twice so far and never received the books so it’s past time I bought them.  The series focuses on October Daye, a half fae half human changling child caught between the two worlds.  I expect plenty of urban fantasy goodness — and the fourth book, Late Eclipses, will be out in March.
• Pleasure Unbound by Larissa Irone, book one in the Demonica series.  You might remember that I won Miss Irone’s Anti-Valentine’s Day contest.  I was able to get the first book in this series, which I already have in ebook.  Watch Book-Addicts.com for a giveaway in April or May!  In this book, she’s a demon-slayer, he’s a demon, and there’s love at stake – and lives.  Other peoples and probably theirs.  This book won several awards in 2008, so I’m looking forward to it!
• Black Dust Mambo by Adrian Phoenix, first in a new series.  It’s about hoodoovoodoo stuff.  I’m not sure what it is about this book that grabbed me, but I’ve been trying to get around to finding a copy and reading it since it came out, and now I have it!  There’s double crossing, dark magic, and Big Trouble out there on the bayou.
• Books 1-4 of Ann Aguire’s science fiction series, Jax.  (Grimspace, Wanderlust, Doubleblind, Killbox)  This series follows Jax, a ship navigator who can jump ships through grimspace.  People want her.  People need her.  And others will stop at nothing to get her off their back.  I’ve also been told there’s romance between those pages somewhere.
• Breathers by S.G. Browne – I’m a sucker for zombie stories! This is about ZOMBIE LOVE!  Well, I’m assuming since the book is told from the perspective of a newly risen deceased with no clue what to do with himself until he shambles into an Undead Anonymous meeting, finds his undead heart fluttering and his interest peaked by the taste of living flesh.
• Monster Island by David Wellington – This isn’t a zombie rising story, this looks like a how-we-survive story, focusing on a UN Officer and a small troupe of girl soldiers who need to get to the heart of New York City to get medicine.  Only thing stopping them is about eight million pesky zombies.  No big deal, right?  This is the first in a trilogy of zombie novels, I think. I’m still not sure…
• Enemy Within by Marcella Burnard – Science Fiction Romance, which I finished on Friday.  Amazing book!  Two neighboring space empires and a hostile alien race and one huge conspiracy.  The POW heroine can never be sure who she can trust, if she’s still imprisoned or if she’s finally found freedom, and if her enemy isn’t really a savior in multiple disguises.  There’s another book coming out this spring in this series.  Really good tension, not very smexy, so I would see recommending this to men as well as women.
• Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu – I took a quiz the publisher, Avon, has on Facebook and she was one of my book-love-matches.  The first in her Dirk & Steel series, it has shifters.  Which is almost a guaranteed I-will-love-it!  This book unleashes the shifters from a prison that has lasted far too many years.  Possibly beyond help or reach, the could be lovers must do something – I’m not sure what, but it’s shifters so I’ll probably dig it and tell you all about it.
• Beyond the Night by Joss Ware – postapocalypitc paranormal romance, with imortals, people with gifts and the ability to nap like Rip Van Winkle.  This one came recommended from somewhere and I snatched it up on the Sony eReader store when it went on promo sale for about $2.  I’m anticipating liking it lots, so I grabbed a physical copy for yet another give-away!
• Bullies, Bastards and Bitches by Jessica Morell – Published by Writer’s Digest, it’s a guide to making really good, cackling bad guys.  It has a whole section on creating monster bad guys.  Really good antagonists can amp a book up to an even better level of awesome.  Even a section about writing bad guys for younger audiences.
• On Writing Horror edited by Mort Castle – Essays collected by the Horror Writers Association on the craft of writing horror.
• Revisions and Self-Editing by James Bell – Another book put out by Writer’s Digest, all about the revision process.  Since it’s one of my big goals for the year, it looked like a wise investment.

Did you buy any books this week?  What did you buy?  Reading anything interesting?

Reviving Ancient Babylon

Over the last month I’ve been discussing world building on Wednesdays, and then using one of my WIPs as an example for blogging on Fridays.  Today I’m talking about how I created my alternate history!

I’ve always loved history.  I love figuring out why things are the way they are today – because of something that happened way back when.  I decided to do a heavy alternative history story because I was quite frankly tired of the western mindset.  I wanted to write about a culture that was diverse and successful and did some things better than we do them now, and some things not so much.

The first thing I did when I decided that I was really going to do this – and without magic – I started reading history and time-lines about ancient Babylon.  I learned things about their history and my own that I had never known before.

• Did you know that the ancient Babylons were the first to celebrate the New Year?  It was the spring equinox, so sometime during March of our current calendar.
• Easter traditions of painting eggs and telling stories about the Easter Bunny bringing presents originated in Babylonian fertility rites.
• The Christmas tree and Yule log might have first been used in Babylon to commemorate the death and rebirth of their God and also to signify the turning of seasons.

The list goes on and on and on!

At some point in history I had to decide where to start changing things.  I knew that I wanted Babylon to be a major world power, culturally and religiously diverse, and better educated as a whole.  In order to accomplish a lot of this, I had to start altering historical events fairly early.

At 323 AD Alexander the Great died in Persia at Babylon.  I really like the history up until this point but decided that after Alexander’s death, Babylon started to change.  I researched who took over Babylon, the progressive downfall of the country and started mapping out how to shore up against that happening in my time line.

When I was finished weighing the cause and effect of my changes, here’s a list of things that are different in my time:

• Babylon is the world power.  It covers all of the Middle East and relies heavily on maritime power.
• The rise of Europe’s power was in the age of expansion and exploration.  The countries didn’t have the resources to sustain a large empire and have fallen once again into small countries.
• Most of Canada is over run with Vikings.
• The land the thirteen colonies was established on has been given over to convicts from Europe.  The Natives, who are referred to properly by their tribe name, keep them hemmed against the ocean.
• What we know of as South America is the domain of the Aztecs and Mayans.  After the Spanish attempted to invade, they have never been friendly in return.
• Australia is ‘the Brave New World’.  It’s difficult to get permission to live there, but if you can your life will almost certainly be better.  There are no homeless because they are not allowed.  crime is not tolerated, and the practice of the Walkabout is a thing of national pride.
• The powers that compete with Babylon are the Roman Empire, the Greeks (who might as well have an empire tacked onto their name), and the Asian country, which changes leaders and names.
• Christianity is still only Catholicism, it has never split and it never gained world wide familiarity.
• Commercial airplanes do not exist.  Airplanes are still mostly a novelty.

There’s more, but I won’t bore you with the details.  Suffice to say, this isn’t your momma and daddy’s world.

Is there a book you’ve read that changed history?  Did you like or dislike the changes?

Someone told me America was a place to express your ideas. But really we want to all be the same.

I was going to post something else today, but I read Cheryl Rainfield’s blog on Tuesday and it’s been eating at me.  Her book, Scars, has been on my To Read list for a while because to be honest, there just aren’t that many books out there like it.  It’s the story of a teenage girl, sexually abused and stalked, who finds control over her situation by cutting herself.  Along the way, she falls in love with another girl.  I’ve heard a lot of really good things about the book.

I can also see where it could be controversial.

There are a lot of viewpoints in the world today.  You might be a right-wing loyalist, a tea party fanatic, or religiously adherent.  I make no apology for being conservative in my views – but I also understand that you don’t believe the same things I do.  And that’s okay.

Did you read that last thing?

It’s okay for people to believe differently.  To want to read different things.  Because we were all raised differently.  We have different needs, wants, desires, fears and not all of our baggage is Gucci.

It upsets me that a public library would be pressured to remove a book by people who have probably never read it.  Someone with too much time on their hands probably flipped it open, read the jacket and went screaming to another person.  I’d like to know how many of those people asking for the book to be removed have read it, or are just judging it by the cover.  I can understand high school libraries removing books that are of questionable content, but not a public library.

There’s a lot I could say about why Scars being removed from the public library upsets me.  I could talk about my own traumatic times as a teenager.  I could point out how a book like that might be the only therapy a teen could ever experience.  But I can’t seem to put it in words.  Maybe I’m too close to the topic at heart, so I apologize if I come off as a raving, drum beating crazy lady.

This is America.  Where we’re supposed to have freedom of speech and press.  We’re supposed to be the melting pot of the world.  But we’re afraid of a book.  An idea.  Part of me wants to ask those requesting the ban, Why are you so insecure that a fictitious story captured in black and white text scares you?  What happened to you that this threatens you so much?

When I wrote this up I asked myself all the necessary questions I wrote about in my Bad Blogging post, and then I started to listen to the slam poet, Bradly Hathaway.  He has a piece about what it means to be ‘hardcore’ that says…

Somebody told me hardcore was a place to share what you believe, but I didn’t like what dude said, so I flipped him off and told him to leave.

That’s kind of how I feel like we’re acting.  We see something, a book in this case, that we don’t like and it must be wrong, bad, or something else so we ban it, we speak out against it, and we seperate ourselves from what we say is ‘bad’ and in doing so we cut out bits and pieces of who we are.  Ideas can be dangerous, they can create revolution, inspire love, or craft a beautiful letter.  The written words on a page in the end only matter to you if you read them, and no one is forcing you to read them.  You have to chose to.  At least here in America you have that freedom.

I’m sad and upset that people can be so short-sighted.

Every year the American Library Association hosts a Banned Books Week in late September.  They also keep tabs on what books are being banned, and how often.  It’s a ways off, but I’d like to encourage you to scroll through the lists and see what books and authors are being banned.  It might surprise you to see what’s on there.

Here’s a quick list from skimming the top ten books banned each year.  These are books I am familiar with. 

• To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
• Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling 
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor

To Kill A Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are all books I read in school growing up.  Are they at times uncomfortable to read because they introduce ideas of racism and violence?  Yes, but those are part of our world.  Twilight, I might not care for it, but I’ve never seen the books cause physical injury.  The Harry Potter series breathed a huge breath of fresh air into Middle Grade and YA publishing.  Yes, it’s dark at times, but what I’ve read of it there isn’t needless violence or a mandate to sacrifice your neighbors new born kittens in the margins.

Click through the list of banned books and the authors.  Do you see an author you know?  Are you surprised by it?

World Building: Timing Matters.

Yikes, is it already time to tackle the last topic?  I’ve been doing a series here about World Building this month, talking about your Springboard idea, the history of your world, and the modern day.  But what if you want to recreate our own world?  What if you want the past to have happened differently?  What if the future is the result of some significant piece of history never happening?

If you’re going to change history for your story – that’s great!  It’s fascinating to think – what could have happened if…?  This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook as far as research goes – no way!  Really, this means that you need to research even more.

Alternate history stories are diverse in nature.  If you take any part of history and change it, and write a story involving those changes – that’s alternate history!  Now you can change a little, as in – what if in some great historical event happened differently, how would that change things?  Or, you can change a lot, as in – what if there is magic, and creatures, and time travel?  Writing Excuses did a great podcast about this, and discusses these two diverse elements in plenty of detail.  I’m not out to recreate what they podcasted, so I would wholeheartedly suggest looking into that if you’re interested.

If you take a hard look at a lot of Urban Fantasy, where we have the real world – but with magic and shifters and demons – that’s mixing alternate history into their genre.  Chances are you’ve never thought about how many books are out there that make use of alternative history techniques.  There’s a lot of alternative history going on, and chances are you’ve probably never even thought about it!

Now, before you write a story with a large, very obvious chunk of alternative history, I’m going to make a big, broad suggestion to you: invest in a thick skin.  No matter how much research you do, no matter how well prepared you think you are, there will always be someone out there who knows either more about that time period than you do, and those people might complain about your story.  “But it’s my creation!  It’s fantasy!”  you tell me.  Well, okay, I’m just going to warn you now that you could get some criticism.

Alternative history stories take a lot of research.  You need to know the time you’re changing inside and out.  If you change who won a battle, how will that affect other things across the world?  Changing one thing in history has a ripple effect.

I forgot where I heard this story, but author Scott Westerfeld writes a Steampunk YA series and though he was writing a very extensive alternate history, he still went through the effort to figure out when zippers were made, and by whom.  It’s the little details that make your history believable.  Don’t skrimp on your research, because it will make or break your alternative history in the long run.

Here’s a list of things to consider when writing any type of alternative history:

• At what point does established history and alternative history split?
• Why did it split?
• How does this effect the immediate historical events? (Make a list and then ask the same question again for each change to history.)
• What countries are effected?
• People?
• Would your changes effect how technology develops?
• Would the world powers still be centered in the west?
• How about on the personal level, for your characters, what things would be changed for them?  Make a list of your characters day to day activities and go through that list to see if changing history might change the daily lifestyle.

Think of a point in history you know at least five facts about.  Now change the outcome.  How would that effect those five facts?

Did your Mother teach you Bad Blogging? Or did you learn that on your own?

Do you remember those awkward years in junior high when being called ‘smelly’ or another kid saying you had ‘ugly shoes’ really upset you?  Do you remember a time when someone insulted you, your family, or something you care about?

There was an instance when I was playing roller derby where a teammate was saying some unpleasant things about me, publicly to other friends and that got back to me.  It hurt my feelings, it sucked.

Social Media puts us all in such close proximity that when you post a blog or tweet something about someone, there’s a good chance that they’re going to hear about it.  I’ve noticed a few blogs recently where a reviewer or an author crosses a line from objective blogging or reviewing into something personal or catty.  If you have something that’s not nice to say, that targets someone personally, don’t put it on a public forum.

Calling out an author because of the way that person looks or bringing a critique of that person’s life into a review of a book is unprofessional, it’s not nice and it’s not a good way to be recognized as a reviewer worth noticing.  Authors railing against their reviewers because they don’t like the review and pointing fingers isn’t going to endear them to reviewers or readers.  And reviewers are readers, despite what some blogs have been saying.  My friend Suzan did a post where she tallied up how much money she spends on books.  It was a lot.  She’s not just a reviewer, she was a reader first.

It seems as if we have lost the idea of being polite.  Social Media puts us all in a virtual face to face conversation and we seem to forget that things like tone don’t translate in a tweet or can come off wrong in a blog.  We’ve forgotten how to conduct ourselves in a public setting, because along the line we’ve forgotten that the internet and Social Media are just that.  A lot of people use the fact that they can say whatever they want online and never have to come face to face with the individuals they are talking about.  We hide behind an HTML page and the safety that it brings us from person to person contact.

That’s not a good enough excuse.  Acting out foolishly decreases a persons professional clout.  I’m not interested in hearing the opinions of bloggers who cut down an author for what they wear, and I’m not interested in reading books by authors who point fingers at people who review their books and don’t say what they want to hear.

It seems to me that a lot of people need to remember their manners.

1. Remember the human. Which is a modern way of saying the old, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  You’re communicating through an interface and sometimes it’s easy to forget that there is a real person on the other side of things.  Though I’m willing to say a lot of things to people in face to face conversation, I scale that back online, because you, my lovely reader, cannot see my face or the gestures I make with my hands as I speak or the tone of my voice.  I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m saying.
2. Would I say this to their face? If the answer is no, don’t say it online.  Rewrite it until you could say it to a persons face.  I think about this when I blog or any time I’m going to mention a name online.  I ascribe to an honest philosophy in life; if I believe it, I should be willing to say it but the internet is not always the forum for that conversation.  Consider what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it before you commit.
3. Everything you write is permanent. It’s the internet.  Emails are saved, copied, archived, printed, shared and even blogged.  What you say can very well will come back to haunt you.  There was a blog up some time ago that after many explosive reactions, was taken down – it doesn’t matter, in cyberspace that blog still lives on.  People have copied it, commented on it and it’s out of the bloggers hands now.  I feel sorry for that person who posted in anger.  They will always have that blog hanging over their head, because they never stopped to consider the consequences.
4. Say what you have to say in style. The internet connects us to all kinds of people, and those people have no idea who you are, or what you do.  The only thing they have to go on, is what you say and how you say it – in black and white text (or purple or blue if you change font colors, but whatever!).  While anonymity is a great thing online, it can hinder you in communicating.  So whatever you have to say, think about it, count to ten if you need to before hitting send.  Don’t send an email with misspellings, no punctuation or horrendous grammar if you can help it.  (Unless they’re your friends, mine understand, at least I think they do.)  You don’t have to be perfect, but don’t make what you have to say painful to read.  It only reflects poorly on you.
5. Never reply in anger. A lot of things can be said online.  Tempers can flare when someone targets something near and dear to our hearts, or when they target us.  It may feel good to write that scathing email or blog, but look back up at Number 3.  Write your reply out, and save it as a draft.  Come back in an hour or the next day and ask yourself the question in Number 2.  Really think about it.
6. Be willing to forgive. We all make mistakes.  We’re human, Social Media brings us closer together but it doesn’t remove the human element for mistakes.  Things are always going to be said in the heat of the moment you wish could be taken back, but can’t.  Be willing to let the water go under the bridge and move on.  I had a very close friend for quite a while who started out as a random MySpace friend (yes, I’m going back that far!)  He made a lot of insensitive, rude comments on my blogs and I called him on it.  We started a huge flame war but at some point we both took a step back and realized we didn’t know who we were fighting with or what we were even fighting about.  After a phone conversation, since I found out he lived in Houston and I was in Dallas, we put our differences aside and had a very close friendship for several years.  But all because we were willing to forgive one another.

There are countless guides out there to Netiquette and Manners, I’m just outlining a few core things that if people considered a little bit more before they said something, there would be a lot less strife between people.

Have you ever said something online you wish you could take back?

Was I thinking?

So as I sit here, contemplating my to read shelf and what things I want to make sure get read, reviewed, or just enjoyed in the near future – I asked myself this question:

Why don’t I include what I’m reading in my weekly update?

Yeah?  Why don’t I?

I review books for Book Addicts, but I also read a lot of stuff that will never make it into the review rotation just because of the sheer bulk of it.  I read fast, and I read a lot.  Granted sometimes my focus is reading instead of knitting or writing or whatever, you get the point!

And, what you read often has an impact on what you write.  I’ve been looking for urban fantasy type books with a desert setting.  Reading is research and serious business!

So next week I’m going to incorporate reading goals and progress into my update.  Since I’m going to the effort of making this post, I’m going to share what I want to get read this week!

1. Accidentally Catty by Dakota Cassidy – I’ve already read this once.  I need to do a re-read for review purposes.  I have a pitiful review because I thought someone else would snag the book to review and I wasn’t going to fight over it, but I’m reviewing it!  So, I need a reread!
2. Deadly Fear by Cynthia Eden – This is in the mail as we speak.  I’m insanely excited about this book, and also need to read it ASAP for reviewing.
3. Sweet as Sin by Inez Kelly – Suzan recommended this and I bought it, just haven’t read it yet.

I have a little breathing room right now before I need to focus on review reading for April, so I really should take advantage of it, but I crammed three of the Kate Daniels books in over the last four days, so I need to get some other things done as well.  Should I get through those three books this week, the next ones on my list are steampunk, zombie noir, and urban fantasy – woohoo!

What are you reading?

Writing Update

This update isn’t very long.  I do these every Monday to help keep me accountable.You might not know me, or what I write but the idea that I must check in weekly with you helps drive me to do stuff.

Blogging.

I’ve got blogs scheduled through the week, with a few different topics.  It’s pretty exciting having all of this planned out.  I’m working on March and April blogs, actually.  I’m working on convincing a psychologist friend of mine to work on a series with me, but that will probably be for later in the year once he gets some time – well, the time is questionable but when he can get into the grove of it.  But first he must agree!

Also, I just want to say thank you to all of the people who have been reading my blog.  The hits have almost tripled.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve changed up my topics or if you’re just sharing me, but it’s cool!  Thank you!!

Revising.

I’ve created an action item of things to work on for my YA novel, Gate Keepers, but getting into it to edit it has proven difficult.  My goal this next week is to write a new beginning for it.  I’m hoping that it will act as a springboard to motivation and I’ll get more invested in that project.

Over the weekend I read through my novella for this anthology project I’m involved with.  I like the story, but I think it can be cuter, things can be cleaner and the pacing better.  That will probably be getting most of my revision focus.

Plotting.

I was really anxious over handing in my antagonist to the Warrior Writer group on Saturday, but I got a lot of really good feedback on it.  I was expecting more suggestions and to be run through the wringer a bit more, but people were pleasantly surprised with what I was sharing with them.  It’s exciting!  We came up with an idea for the plot that really helps me focus my attention I think for the eventual brainstorming of the plot.

Over the weekend I’ve been working on the profiles for my protagonist, at least one of them, and watching the Paranormal State tv show.  It’s a little creepy, but it has really helped me think through some of my characters philosophy and her attitudes about life and things.  Warrior Writer won’t meet for two weeks, so I have time to get my other protagonist done.  My eventual goal is to get ahead of myself for the group work.

Writing.

I’ve pretty much decided that I need to focus on one project.  While I think Reti is a great, fantastic idea, it could use with some more ideas, working through some more things.  Casual Love, on the other hand, just sort of jumps out onto the page and is easy to write.  I think I can get through the first draft of it pretty easily, so that’s going to be my focus for now – just writing one project!

Project: Reti Guild
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Type: Novel
Progress: For right now this is going back into the planning stages.  If I feel like breaking it out and writing on it a bit, I will, but it won’t be my daily focus.

Project: Formerly Fat Club: Casual Love
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Type: Novel
Progress: This last week was tough going.  After the quick write up of the novella, getting down and untangling the mess of stuff I had written back ages ago and getting it to where I could use it was hard going, but the last half of the week was full of wonderful writing time.  I really like writing Dee, the heroine.  She’s sort of a basket case, but very cool.

So, what have you been working on?  Are you staying accountable with your writing, or reading?