Be sure to check out The Spellbound Scribes blog!

As many of you know, I contribute to another blog, The Spellbound Scribes. We took a quick hiatus to revamp our blog and retool our thinking. But it is back up and we hit the ground running!

Be sure to follow me and my fellow Scribes to read some awesome creative and informative posts. You'll find flash fiction, story in the round, posts on writing craft, plans for world domination, things that go bump in the night, pretty much anything you'd like to see from a group of Paranormal writers.

Writing – My Secrets

Many of you know I churn out a pretty high word count average per day. When I sit down to write I average 3,000-5,000 words. I don’t like to say pages because a page of narrative compared to a page of dialogue is so different that some days you’ll get 4-8 pages and others 10-15 depending on how much dialogue you wrote.

So, how do I do it? Since I started writing the Elemental Series I stopped treating writing like a hobby. That is the biggest question you need to ask yourself: Is writing a hobby for you? If it isn’t, if you plan to someday quit that day job and become a fulltime writer then you need to treat your writing like a job. I wrote the first three rough drafts of the first three books in the Elemental Series while working a full time job. I did not, by any stretch of the imagination, get 3-5k words a day during that time, but I forced myself to get 1k words, five days a week.

Because I was in the habit of writing 1k words a day (which averages out to 4 pages if you’re curious), when I lost my job due to the economy crash, it wasn’t difficult for me to demand more words of myself every day.

Now I’m a fulltime writer so of course I need to get a much larger word count. Yes, the house needs to be cleaned, the laundry needs doing, the dogs need walking, food needs to be cooked, time spent with my husband. All of that needs to be done, but you do all of that with a day job, right? Why make excuses to keep from writing? All of those things will still get done after you’ve allowed yourself time to write. Treat it like a job. If you called in sick every day to any other job, you’d eventually get fired, right? Right.

But how do I get that much written in a day, that’s the other question. I do not sit at my desk and write nonstop until I reach my word goal for the day. If I did, I would never get the numbers I get. Instead I carve out my words in chunks. There are a few different ways to do this, you just gotta figure out what works best for you.

I am very active on Twitter and like to have it open while I’m writing. I use it to report how much I’ve written and tell people I’m writing so if there’s someone else writing at that moment, they know they aren’t alone. It’s good to have a writing community.

When I first started this practice a popular challenge was #1k1hr – which means you’re committing to writing for one straight hour to get 1,000 words. This is cool, but it doesn’t always work for me. One straight hour, never looking away, never giving yourself a tiny break, gets to me. Like a cat with a laser pointer, I can’t focus.

I sprint. I write for 15 mins straight, or 20 minutes or 30. I never go longer than 30 without a break. In 15 mins I can write about 400-500 words. In 20 I can write 500-800 words and in 30 I almost always break the 1k mark and average 900-1300 words. But if you ask me to write for one hour straight I wont get much more than 1k because I slow down and want to do other things. It’s too much! Could you run as fast as you could for a whole hour? Do you think by the 40 min mark you’d be running just as fast as you were at the 15 min mark? Probably not. I look at writing the same way.

I sprint, usually with some writer friends, for a short block of time, then look away from the document. I check my email, twitter, stats, whatever. I take a 5-15 min break and then go again. But even if you only take a 5 min break, it will make a huge difference.

So that’s my big secret!

Figure out what works for you and do it. It doesn’t matter what you have to do to write, so long as you actually write.

Spirit’s One Monthaversary!

So Spirit has been live for one whole month now. It’s still strange to me to have this series finished. I’m happy to say the characters haven’t left me though. I still see their faces in my mind and hear their voices whispering to me.

The reason why that is so amazing is that it means there’s a possibility to future stories. I’ve talked about a spin off series in the future featuring Shay in her new life but I think it might be possible to have some other stories come out in the future. I like the idea of possibly writing some short stories in that world. Possibly written from Steven or Jodi’s point of view.

Maybe I’ll be able to write some stories about their pasts, some small adventures they’ve lived through that you all missed? Or something in the college years (at least for Jodi and Steven, lol). I don’t want to make any promises or say anything too terribly specific, but I do think it’s a strong possibility.

I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to start writing the first book in the spin off series, but some fun short stories might get my gears moving! 

Genres and Where Should Your Book Live?

I thought I’d talk a little about genres. They can be so confusing, yeah? Yeah.

One of the biggest things writers have to know when they are submitting their work to agents and publishers is what genre their book is. It seems like this should be pretty obvious to most people, I mean, you wrote your book, you should know this, right? Eh, maybe.

Here’s how it can get confusing.

One big example is Dystopian vs. Post-Apocalyptic. A lot of the time these two terms are thrown around as interchangeable and they really are not.

Dystopian, as you can imagine, comes from the concept of Utopian. The big thing about Dystopian books is that the characters in the book don’t actually realize they are living in a Dystopian society, they’re supposed to believe they’re in a Utopian society and then come to realize, as the story goes, that things aren’t so awesome.

The Hunger Games is a Dystopian story. The farther away you live from the Capital, the more obvious your life isn’t awesome, but supposedly life is better than it was before.

Post-apocalyptic means the world has ended and you know, and the characters know, life is officially crap and you’re just trying to survive until you can make things better. There is no fooling anyone when it comes to Post-apocalyptic like there is in Dystopian.

I recently read The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. That is Post-apocalyptic. The aliens have invaded and they are systematically wiping out the human population (that is not a spoiler by the way; you know that by page one). You’re running around, just trying to survive and find other survivors and not get vaporized by the creepy alien dudes. No fooling anyone there.

Another confusion set of genres is Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy.

I write in Urban Fantasy, almost exclusively. Urban Fantasy (UF) is set in a real world, modern city setting. Paranormal Romance (PR) can be set in the exact same space. UF has magic. So does PR. What’s the big difference? Whether or not the story hinges on the romantic plot of two characters.

In PR the whole story, no matter what is going on, depends on the developing romantic relationship in the story. In UF there can be a romantic subplot going through the story, but the main conflict of the story does not depend on the romantic subplot. See why my Elemental series wasn’t a Paranormal Romance? In the beginning Shay and Jensen are coming together and apart all the damn time but the big conflict had nothing to do with them hooking up. The big conflict was Shay and her friends rescuing someone before the big bad villain killed them.

So if you’re trying to decide what genre your book is, take a moment and think, “Where would a bookstore shelve my book?” Then decide what the subgenre is. And don’t think your book doesn’t fit into a specific genre. I often hear writers say, “Well, my book could be this or that or A or B…” No. It fits in one place and then you can say what its subgenre is.

For example, a Paranormal Romance is first a Fantasy because it has fantastical elements, like magic. So your book, The Magical Ride of the Phoenix is Fantasy: Paranormal Romance. And of course the age group is important.

So, speaking of Age Groups! There’s a lot of hoopla going around the internets lately about a newly emerging age group: New Adult. A lot of people are against letting this become a thing. Personally, I am not. I think there is a strong market for New Adult, just not a lot of people know about it yet.

The basic age groups go like this: Picture Books, Chapter Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Adult.  

Picture books are obviously for kids who can’t read yet. Then Chapter Books are for kids who can read up until about age 10 or so (give or take depending on the kid). Then Middle Grade is for kids ages 10-12 and then Young Adult is intended for Teens, so 13-18. Obviously we all accept that when someone is 18-years-old they are officially an adult, right? So anything that has characters older than 18 means that book is an Adult book. Sure, sure, but do you remember being 18 or 19 years old? Are you in your late 20’s now? How about 30’s or 40’s? Have your experiences with life drastically changed over the years?

Would you say your life from ages 18-21 were ANYTHING like your life from age 28-35? Probably not, right? I started college when I was 17 years old and graduated at 21 years old. I was engaged to be married at 22 ½ and married at 24. Not a huge length of time between 17 and 24, right? But you can just imagine how different my life was while in college than what is was like by the time I was engaged and planning a wedding.

So I think there is a place in the book world for “New Adult.” People are making jokes that if we allow New Adult that soon we’ll have Middle Aged and Senior Citizen, blah blah blah. I get that argument, but I think it’s farfetched personally, but you could disagree.

But back to classifying your work. So, when I was deciding what Earth: Book One in the Elemental Series was it came down to this: Young Adult Urban Fantasy.

So do your research and don’t make it so hard on yourself. Your book has a home somewhere, not somewheres.

What I’ve been up to May 24, 2013 edition

My my my, I have been a bad blogger. It has nearly been a whole month since I last posted anything – right before Spirit went live. I’m going to try to make up for that in the coming weeks.

So what have I been doing? Surprisingly enough, I’ve been writing. I know, right?! Crazy!

I’ve shared with you all in the past that I already started on the next few projects that I was planning after the conclusion of the Elemental Series. The first book in a new Urban Fantasy series (Adult this time around, not Young Adult), was finished in early February and I’ve been submitting to agents. I’m super superstitious so I’m not going to talk about that anymore, but I did start on the sequel to that book and finished it on Tuesday.

I’m not wholly happy with it and I know it needs work, but that’s what the editing stage is for. Anyone who has asked me how to get through writing a whole book has heard me say, “Just write the damn thing. No matter how crappy it is, just get the first draft done.” Because you can’t fix what hasn’t been written. So I’m okay with not being wholly happy with it. I will fix it in editing and after my betas rip it apart.

But before I wrote that sequel I wrote a whole different book, a post-apocalyptic book. This was totally outside my wheelhouse, but I wanted to see if I could do it. Again, not wholly happy with it. And really, I thought it was just going to sit in my hard drive and never see the light of day, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and I might print it off and take my red pen to it.

The Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic market is pretty well saturated right now and most agents are feeling a little overwhelmed with this genre, so I think, if I can make it shiny and awesome, I might self-publish this one. So you might see something new from me sooner rather than later. I am debating putting it out as a whole novel or serializing it (offering it in episodes). We’ll see how I feel about it after I edit it and give it to some betas and get some feedback on it. This one is New Adult (the main characters are 18-20) and focuses on a romantic relationship. So again, slightly different than what I’ve written before. If I jive on it and decide it is worth putting out there, it would be a trilogy.

And between that novel and the one I finished on Tuesday, I wrote a novella. So since January 1^st, I’ve written a whopping total of 247,660 words. Yep, almost a quarter million words. Needless to say, I’m feeling a wee bit burnt out. I have officially given myself permission to take a little time off between projects to recharge my batteries.

At the first of the year I made a few writing resolutions. This was the list:

3-4 novels

3 novellas

1 short story

So I’ve completed 3 novels, 1 novella and 0 short stories and it’s only May. That seems pretty incredible to me. But I might’ve set the bar too high, or tried too hard to reach it too fast. I need a break.

It’s incredibly difficult for me to go any length of time and not write. I feel lost and like I’m wandering in fog. But I need to take some time off, if I don’t my writing will suffer for it. I wish my hubs and I could go somewhere for a real vacation because that would really help, but it’s not in the cards right now. Luckily it’s sunny and warm in my part of the state so I’ll read and relax and drink in the sun and when my head is in the right space, I’ll start editing some of this finished work. I really hope to have news of new work for you guys to read soon.

Spirit Goes Live Soon and I'm Not Writing

I haven’t written a word today on my new work in progress.

Tonight I hit “publish” on the final installment of my Young Adult Paranormal series: The Elemental Series. Spirit will be live and the series will be finished. I’ve talked about the possibility of a spin off series in the near future, but I haven’t started on it yet because both, I and my characters, needed a break from that world.

Shay and I went on a five year adventure together. We’ve fought, cried and bled together and came out the other side whole and new. But now we needed some rest.

So I started a new series with a new world and new characters. I’ve completed the first book and am working on the second, but I haven’t written anything today. I’m not sure that I can. Shay was the first voice in my head that stuck around long enough for me to tell her whole story and because we’re celebrating the end of the series, the anniversary of the start of the series and mourning the close, I just can’t seem to hear my other characters’ voices today. I’m sure tomorrow they’ll come roaring back to me, wondering why I took a couple of days off while they were on the cusp of a bloody battle, but not today.

I’m in a weird kind of fugue today. I expected to be excited to release this book, just a bundle of nerves, terrified to hear what everyone thinks, but I’m not. I thought I might dread hitting publish today, but I don’t. I’m almost not even present. Maybe I’m afraid of how upset I’ll be when it hits me that The Elemental Series is over? I don’t know.

I do know that I’ve heard a lot of love from my readers who cannot wait for me to hit publish. And that is incredible. I remember when I first put out Earth almost exactly two years ago to this minute, and how each little sale made me jump for joy, and now I’ll have five novels out and Earth almost has 100 reviews on Amazon alone and readers are reaching out to me. It’s a little strange, wonderful, but strange. It certainly hasn’t felt like two years. Not even close.

I hope you guys like the book. I hope I ended the series well. I hope you’ll feel satisfied. I hope you’ll keep reading the new things I have planned. I hope Shay decides to start speaking to me again, soon. I hope for a lot of things.

I hope.

Characters, role models or pure fantasy?

This week I'm over at the Spellbound Scribes' blog talking about characters and whether or not they should be role models for readers. Check it out!

Characters, role models or pure fantasy?

Post Writing Malaise – Or What Happens When You Finish a Book

As a full time writer, I write every day. I treat this like the job it is and only take off on the weekends and sometimes, not even then. When I had a day job I only asked myself to write 1,000 words each day, but now I expect 3,000+ each day. So when I finish a book I’m always at a loss.

I had a moment of pure, crystalline clear joy that it is finally done. Yesterday, when I finished the first draft of the Dystopian book I’ve been writing, I jumped up, ran out into the front of the house and just screamed. This book has been especially difficult for me since none of the characters could perform magic. And there were days that I never thought I would finish. There were days where I questioned why I ever wanted to write a book outside of my wheelhouse – after all I write Paranormal fiction, why would I risk hurting my brand by straying from it? There were days where I told myself, just put in zombies, or make someone a firestarter, or something, just add some magic and it’ll be easier. But I managed to keep with the plan and left out the magic and supernatural creatures. And, in doing so, I had a brilliant idea that will lead into the second book.

And yesterday I wrote for five straight hours, hearing the last words of the main character echo in my head, waiting for me to catch up in the story to type them, and I finished the damn thing.

Then I ran out and screamed. I jumped up and down and screamed some more.

Then I ran back to my office and quickly backed up the document in three different locations. Remember to back up your work people!

Then I went in search for food because the whole day all I had consumed was coffee and protein shakes, not wanting to waste time preparing food or eating it. But after I ate I sat down and just stared. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something?

Right, I’m supposed to be writing. But I finished.

So what do I do now?

Relax.

How?

Watch some TV.

But I’m supposed to be writing.

But you finished the manuscript. Now you need to take a breath and regroup.

Regroup for what?

For the next project.

The next project! Yes! I’ll start that!

No, the next project is editing and you’re too tired to do that right now. You’ll take a long weekend, decompress, get the end-of-the-world story out of your head and print off the Paranormal book on Monday.

Monday?

Yes, Monday – that is when you’ll start editing.

Editing?

Yes, that’s the next project!

That’s not writing! I’m supposed to be writing! See! Even Neil Gaiman says I should!

Editing is writing, it’s re-writing, much more important in the process.

So what do I do now?

Sit. Relax.

Oh.

That is the inner monologue that goes through my mind when I finish a book. I used to try to plan little trips when I finished a book, giving myself a deadline to meet so that when I finished that last sentence I knew the next day I would be out of the office and didn’t have to think about “what now?” But I didn’t do that for the last book or even this one. I finished a the first book in a new series in January and then the next week I started writing the Dystopian book, again the first in a new series. And again I have nothing planned to get me away from the computer. 

One of the things I always tell my writer friends is to make sure you do something nice for yourself to celebrate the victories, big and little. Even if the celebrations is as small as treating yourself to your favorite cup of coffee, an hour on the couch and your favorite show. I did this after the first week I managed to write 20,000 words in five days. 

Maybe buy yourself a small present. I bought myself some sparkly pink slippers after I finished writing that Paranormal book in January.

Now I’ve added up the numbers and I’ve found that I have written over 155,000 words in two months. So I have to do SOMETHING for myself. I think my husband and I will pile into the car this weekend and we’ll take a drive down the coast, get some seafood, watch the waves and the sunset over the ocean. I’m going to buy some lilies and plant them in the front yard. And I’m going to read for pleasure. It’s not much but it is more than I’ve been able to do for myself in the last two months.

When you are your own boss you have to remember to treat your employees well or they’ll quit on you. So I’m giving myself a few, hard earned days off.

Do something nice for yourself, I’m sure you deserve it.

Reader Questions Part 6

How do you get into “the zone” to write? Have you ever had to deal with writer’s block? How do you get around it?

Seems appropriate to answer all of these questions in one post. You would be amazed how often I get these questions. Seriously. All the time. Even from other writers.

First, let me dispel this concept of “the zone.” There is no such thing. Sure, there are things that you like to do to make it more enjoyable, things that get you into the right mood, maybe, but other than that? Nope.

If you want to be a writer the plain and simple truth is you have to write. People have so many excuses why they don’t have time to write or why they couldn’t yesterday or how tired they are today. Blah blah blah.

I write fulltime now; this is my job. But before I had “all the time in the world” I wrote while having a day job. I’m not a morning person so I didn’t write before work. I like spending time with my husband so I didn’t write after work. I wrote during work. Oh yeah, that’s right. How did I manage it? Easy, you are given breaks at work so I took that time to write. For every four hours you get a 15 min break and if you work eight hours a day you get a lunch break. So, every day I wrote through my breaks. Sometimes I would save up my two breaks and lump them onto my lunch break to give myself that extra time, sometimes I didn’t.

I set myself a word count, back then the minimum amount of words I would demand of myself per day was 1,000. Now that I write full time I aim for 2,500. I know, doesn’t seem like enough, but writing full time and being self-published means I have a lot of other things I have to do that take up time. Like writing this blog. But recently I’ve managed to write 3,500 or more a day. I don’t like to get more than 5,500 words in one day though because it does wear you down.

I do enjoy writing to music and I do like noise to drown out the neighborhood, the dogs and even my husband. And I like to have something to drink with me. But other than that, everything else is just procrastinating. And sometimes I don’t have music to write to, or something to drink, but I still write. Hell, I wrote two chapters one day when I was waiting to be called for Jury Duty. Talk about less than ideal.

But if you want to write, you have to write. Consistently. This is not a hobby for me. Is it a hobby for you?

Writer’s block. I think this is a myth. I think there are days where you don’t feel like writing. I think there are days where you’ve written so much for so many days in a row that you need a break. I think there are times where you’ve written yourself into a corner and can’t figure out how to get out of it. I think you can drop a plot point and mess up the entire roadmap of your story and feel stuck. But there is no such thing as writer’s block.

Sure, there are days where you’ll just stare at the computer, the cursor blinking at you and hours will pass before you start typing, but eventually you do start typing.

On days where I’m having trouble with one scene and I just can’t get into it, I’ll open a blank document and start writing a scene I know is coming so that I can work the kinks out of my brain. While I’m working on that suddenly I’ll realize where I went wrong or where I have to go in that other scene and I’ll pick up where I left off. Because I have to.

For much of The Elemental Series I was a panster, that is to say, I wrote by the seat of my pants, with no outline or idea of where it was going to go. This gave me a sense of urgency to tell the story before I lost it. I always knew what the last scene or great battle was going to be, but I went on the journey to that point much like you, the reader, did – having no idea what was going to happen or what characters were going to walk on stage.

It wasn’t until I was writing Fire that I found I needed to start loosely plotting and outlining. For this new book, I have a full outline. I’m not following it closely, things have changed as I went along, but when I have gotten stuck, I can look back at that outline and remember things I wanted to include. You have to figure out what kind of writer you are and remember every book is going to be different.

But writer’s block is just another excuse not to write. Remember that. If you want to call yourself a writer then you have to write. Simple as that.

Reader Questions Part 5

How do you go into so much detail in fight/magic/love scenes?

I was a creative writing major in college. I went into college thinking I knew how to write, boy was I wrong.

Obviously I took a lot of writing courses, creative writing, children’s literature, exposition writing and on and on. But the course that really helped shape my skills was my Creative Writing: Poetry class. I was lucky enough to be taught by Dr. Jack T. Ledbetter, an award winning poet and playwright.

He was the first person to tell me what a horrid writer I was. He didn’t say it so bluntly, but he opened my eyes. JT liked to tell us about the year a student wrote a poem about staring out his window at the moon. But he didn’t say that, he call the moon, “Yon sailing orb!” Yep. That happened. So, whenever we got too ridiculous or flowery in our poems JT would write in bright red “YSO!” on your paper, across your poem so you knew you’d gone off the descriptive cliff.

JT told us about the French writers of the early Nineteen Century who would write these “masterpieces” that no one actually understood. They thought, “Wonderful! This is Art! The average man shouldn’t understand what we’re saying!” That was the kind of writer I was when I started college. Thank goodness I signed up for Dr. Ledbetter’s class.

Now I know how to write clearly. I can still paint a picture with prose (say that three times fast!) but you, as the reader, still understand just what the hell I’m trying to say.

I’m also lucky enough to have a husband who is a self-defense instructor who has been training in various martial arts for nearly 30 years. So when I need to figure out a fight scene, I turn to him and he teaches me how to hurt someone and then let’s me practice on him. Now that’s love.

In my last post I’ve already told you how much research I’ve done on magic and Wicca, so I just remember what JT taught me about being clear and direct so you see what I see in my mind when I write.

As for the love scenes… well… this is a family friendly page for the most part. Let’s just say I’ve gone through my fair share of poisonous apples until my prince charming came along and broke the spell. I think knowing love helps you write it.

But even with all of that education it still takes practice. I think Air was a better book than Earth, and Water was better than Air and so on. You have to hone your craft and like any skill, if you don’t practice, your writing can get rusty. I’m a better writer today than I was a year ago because I just keep at it and I listen to constructive criticism and have learned to edit my own writing.

Reader Questions Part 4

What research have you done to be able to write the magic and Wiccan practices so well?

I have done so much research there is no measuring stick I could use to tell you. I was very lucky to have parents that encouraged me to do my own research into the various religions and faiths and make my choice about what path I would follow. Because of that I learned a lot about Wicca and the various faiths that still believe in magic.

I started reading books on different religions when I was twelve years old. For the next ten years I would take the time to learn about as many religions as possible. I studied Wicca (other various nature based faiths), Christianity (lost count of how many types), Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, a few Native American faiths, many, many European pagan concepts. You would be surprised how many focus on the idea of living in balance and harmony with the world and your fellow man. Or maybe you wouldn’t, what do I know?

When I was a young teenager I had my cliché periods, which included my Goth phase, my grunge phase and the ideals of anarchy and rebelling against the accepted norm. During that time I spent many hours on the floor of my local metaphysical shop in the book section with dozens of books spread around me reading about magic and witchcraft. I’m really glad I did that because so many of the books reinforced the idea in me that I just needed to be a balanced person that tried to live in harmony with the world around me and appreciate the earth and what it does for us.

It was those hours, in that store, that gave me my greatest education to help me write realistic magic, spell castings and the character of Deb and her coven in this series. Read, read, read.

Reader Questions Part 3

What did you draw from to write Steven’s struggles with his faith and abilities?

Poor, poor, long suffering Steven. I love Steven; he’s my favorite character out of the entire cast in The Elemental Series. And I’m so happy so many other people love him as much as I do. One of the things I love about Steven is what a bright light he is in the face of so much darkness. Steven definitely has his issues and demons but he wants to be happy, unlike so many other people who enjoy their pain and anger, Steven just wants to be happy.

Steven’s struggles with his faith is an amalgamation of a lot of people I knew growing up. I was always really surprised how many Catholics, or Christians in general really, forgot how much mysticism was incorporated in their faith. I’m not going to get into the whole debate about how many pagan practices are incorporated in the various Christian faiths, that’s for another day, but there is magic in those faiths. Unfortunately people tend to think religion and the belief in magic cannot coexist in the same person. Steven’s parents are a couple of these people. This is something Steven struggles with.

For Steven, he has parents that don’t believe in magic and who also struggle with him being gay. Everything that Steven is goes against what they believe. This is the root of Steven’s struggles. I think if Steven’s parents had been secular Catholics or encouraged their children’s imaginations or were okay with the concept of magic, Steven would have had an easier time balancing his Elemental nature and belief in magic with his Catholic upbringing.

No matter how messed up parents make their kids, a lot of people always want to please their parents. Some will always want their parents’ approval no matter how old they are. Those people never want to disappoint their parents. Steven is one of these people. I understand that behavior so I understand Steven’s struggle.

I hope Steven serves as a character that reminds people it is okay to be who you are, even if it isn’t who your parents wanted you to be. And to remember to be happy.

Reader Questions Part 2

Do you plan to write more in the series? What about other books?

I can’t imagine not writing at any point in my life. I love writing; it’s what I was meant to do. Last week I wrote over 21,000 words and told myself I was going to take the weekend off to recuperate. Reasonable, right? Yeah, by Saturday evening I felt so guilty for not writing all day and Sunday was a huge struggle. I’m a writer because I have to write. I also have the same problem a lot of other writers have, in that, while I’m working on one project ideas for others blossom in my mind, demanding attention. So yes, there will be many other books in my future, I hope you’ll stick with me on these new adventures.

Right now my editor has Spirit in her hot little hands and is ripping it apart as we speak (read). So, while I’m waiting for her edits I am working on a whole new story, totally separate from the Elemental world. I don’t have a title yet, but it is my first NaNoWriMo novel, though it is definitely longer than 50,000 words so I did not finish it in November. This particular book is actually an Adult book – I needed a break from the Young Adult world. It is still Fantasy though because I love working with fantastical creatures and magic and awesomeness. I haven’t yet decided if this will be self-published like the Elemental Series was or if I will attempt to send it down the traditional route. We’ll see when it’s done.

As for The Elemental Series, will I ever write more in that world? I had always, always planned on this series being a five book series. As soon as the idea to write about the elements coalesced in my mind, I knew it would be five installments, though I had no idea the story would take the turn it did. Now that Shay’s true self has been revealed, I suppose the old adage, “never say never” is rather appropriate now. I’m not making any promises, mind you, but I will say, Shay has not stopped talking to me. I kind of expected her to, but she’s still in there, in the back of my mind, kicking around.

But I do think I need a little distance from Shay and her cohorts. They need some time to grow into their new roles and time to heal. In the meantime I’ll finish the story I’m working on and start another. Yep, already have an idea for the next book I want to write. After this adult Fantasy I think I’m going to try my hand at a Dystopian (end of the world) book. The other day, while working through some plot issues on the current work in progress, a new character appeared, fully formed, in my mind and the opening narrative of her story was just suddenly there, waiting for me to snatch out of the air.

So yeah. I’ll definitely keep writing, no question about that.

Reader Questions Part 1

I've been writing so much lately that I put it to my readers to ask me some questions they'd like answered to help me get back into the blogging groove. So for the next few entries I'll be answering questions from my readers.

When is Spirit coming out?!?! Any plans for a TV series or a movie deal?

These are two relatively short questions that I think I can answer in one post.

Spirit is scheduled for release on April 30th in the US and probably May 1st in the UK thanks to the time difference. I released Earth on May 1st 2011 so it seems appropriate that the final installment come out on the anniversary of the birth of the series. I am excited, sad and a little bit scared to release the final book in the series. It has gone by so fast and yet it will have been two years since the first book came out. It’s hard for me to understand how long and short the same amount of time can be.

As for the question about a movie or TV series, I have to say, thinking about that seems so pretentious! Lol! But I would never turn down the idea of either. Because Young Adult Fantasies are in such high demand right now, it is difficult not to hear talk about this possibility. But as of right now, there is nothing I can share with you. But if I had my druthers I would prefer a movie deal to a TV series. Seems like TV series never end up following the books, like, at all.

What I've been up to - 8/17/12 edition

I realized last night how long it has been since I’ve let you guys know what’s going on, let alone posting on my blog whatsoever. This tends to happen when I’m in writing mode, especially when I’m trying to finish a project by a certain date and said date is quickly approaching.

So, what am I doing? Well, I’m working on Spirit, the fifth and final installment of The Elemental Series. This has pretty much been my world for the last two months. My wedding anniversary is in late September so I’ve told myself that is the deadline for the first draft. Right now I’m at about 65k words. The other books have all been somewhere between 92k-98k. So you can see just how close I am and yet… just how far.

The most difficult part of a book, for me at least (and a number of other writers I know), is getting through the middle. The middle is hell, it’s like standing at The Black Gates of Mordor, seeing all of Orks, Black Uruks and other armies and the Eye searching for you as you see Mount Doom in the distance and you know you gotta get over there. But you stand there and think, “Why the hell am I doing this? I mean this book is such crap, is it really worth fighting through all of that just to get to the end?”

Yeah. Every book, once I reach the middle I think the book is crap and I hate it and the very idea of sitting at my desk and writing even the most paltry number of words is a chore to kill all other chores before it. And as I sit there, staring at the screen, rereading that last scene, shaking my head and hating my story, I think, “This is a god-awful book and no one, not one person, is going to enjoy this crap!”

But you get through that bit, you write through that wall, you force your way through it as you tell yourself it’s okay to write crap right now because no one else will ever know just how crappity it was. You can and will rewrite it later. A lot of people never finish writing their stories because they can’t keep themselves from editing and editing and editing until

they’re happy, but how can they ever finish editing if they don’t know how the book ends? So, I don’t do this. Sometimes I’ll realize I made a mistake and have to go back and do a quick fix so the book makes sense again, but that’s it and it’s never a major rewrite. Otherwise I just make a quick note and move on.

And right now, as I said before, I’m at about 65k words so I have made it through the middle. Yes, it is still bugging me and niggling at the back of my head, but it’s okay, that’s what the editing stage is for. I think I know how the book is going to end, but it’s still a little foggy and every day the fog shifts and clears a bit and I know a little more. I had considered writing the end and then writing up to it, but every day I think of something else and I know that probably would’ve been a bad idea. But let me tell you, I thought writing that first book was hard, but writing the last book is like nothing I’ve ever imagined. It is so incredibly difficult to write something that will be a satisfying ending to a five book series. I just hope I can do it justice.

So what else? What else have I been up to? Well, as you may know Fire is pretty much done so I am in talks with my amazing cover artist, Stephanie Mooney, about the cover. This one is a little harder for me than any of the others have been but Stephanie is so amazing I know she’ll hit it right on the head, again. I plan to do another cover reveal tour for it so when I have all of that information I’ll post it.

Personally, I’ve been busier in these last few weeks than I have been in a long time. It’s kind of exhausting really!

About six weeks ago I got new tattoos, the first in just over ten years (TEN YEARS?!?). I got a Harry Potter tattoo, specifically the Deathly Hallows symbol. I have a lot of reasons for
getting this one. I know a lot of people will probably shake their heads and roll their eyes,

and that’s fine, the tattoo isn’t for them, it’s for me. The Harry Potter series had a major, major impact on my life and I’ve always wanted a literary tattoo and there’s a good chance this won’t be the only literary tattoo I get.

I also got a Celtic knot tattoo. I am mostly Irish with a mix of other Celtic peoples and I have always, always wanted a Celtic knot work tattoo but had a hard time deciding on what and where. Then, when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Paris, we came across this design on a church and we both knew it was the perfect knot. In knot lore the circle represents eternity and faith and a square is representative of a shield, something that protects you.

And this is, what I think, as the perfect marriage of the two. It is simple and yet intricate, exactly what I wanted.

Let me tell you, getting my two wrists tattooed on the same day and then leaving the parlor with my wrists wrapped got me quite a few side-long glances.

The other week I got to go down to Redondo Beach to The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore to attend a book signing for R.A. Salvatore, my dad’s favorite author. Let me tell you, if you are anywhere near Redondo or San Diego, check these stores out. I wish so much that we had one of these bookstores near me. I would work there in a heartbeat. This is an amazing independent bookstore and they constantly have major, bestselling authors there. Just the other month I got to go to meet Vicki Pettersson there and got to swing dance for goodness sakes!

Speaking of books again, I had a couple of exciting developments in the last couple of weeks as well. Earth was featured on Pixel of Ink on July 27th and let me tell you, that is huge for self and indie published writers. And on Tuesday I got a fantastic four star review from Big Al’s Books and Pals, another huge deal for me! I really thought they had passed on the book because I submitted it for review over a year ago, but looks like I got lucky!

Exposure and word of mouth, that’s what every author needs to keep writing. Yes, we can write without it, but to be able to pursue it like a job and keep cranking out books at a rate that keeps our readers happy? We need to be successful at the selling part. It’s unfortunate but this is still a business. I have tried to keep a six month release schedule, knowing how much I hate to wait a year or more for the next book in a series I love. So if you want to help me, or any author you love, tell your friends how much you love those books, post reviews anywhere you want. Just help get the word out.

In that vein, I have to tell you about this book I read recently and how much I loved it. I have been reading A Song of Ice and Fire, which is a huge undertaking no matter how much I'm enjoying it. After finishing A Clash of Kings I needed a break. Usually I read Paranormal and

Urban Fantasies but I saw this cover and thought, "Let's see." So I bought Easy by Tammara Webber. It's a "new adult" romance and I was swooning through the whole damn thing. It's one of those that other writers wished they'd written.

There was no magic in it, no supernatural creatures, just people and what they go through
during a moment in time. There a lot of steamy wonderfulness, so make your own judgement about how much of that you like, but it has been a long time since I crushed on a male lead character and I totally did in this book. Oh, also, my amazing cover artist did this cover!

So that’s about it for me right now. You’ll have to forgive the radio silence while I’m fighting my way to Mount Doom. It’s so hard to focus on anything else while you’re trying to keep up with your characters, chasing them across the page to make sure you catch every word they say.

The Trouble I'm Having With Mattie's Story

If you’ve been following along here or on Twitter, you know I’ve been trying to start a new project, a departure from Young Adult. But I’ve been having trouble.

I tried to outline the story, and that was good, I had a roadmap of where this first story was going to go, but I’ve been having a hard time getting into the telling of it.

Then I went to a book signing this past week and the author talked about creating a very detailed “world bible” for her new series. A light bulb went off in my head.

In this new story I’m trying to write, it’s entirely different than my Elemental Series. In this project I’m creating a whole new world, not just plunking paranormal characters in our world. These characters have a different reality than we do, they have different slang to go along with this world, and their everyday lives have supernatural elements that we don’t have to deal with.
Maybe I need a world bible. I find while I’m writing this new story I keep stopping to think of the perfect thing for a character to say, rather than them just telling me what they would say. When my character is walking down the street I’m having to think of what the block looks like and what types of storefronts are on that street. I should know these things before I start writing.

So, while I should be much farther with this book than I am, I think I need to stop for a bit and create a world bible. Figure out what types of creatures live in this world and what their roles are, how they speak, what food they eat, who they hate and who the love.

I’ve never done a world bible before and to be honest, I’m not even sure where to start, but it rang a bell in my mind when I heard about it and I think that will be the ticket to finishing this… no, starting this book.

Water Goes Live!

So excited to say those words! The third book in my Elemental Series is finally live and ready to be read!

You can find it on these sites:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

Once Smashwords distributes to iBooks and Kobo and the others, I’ll get those links to you as well.

I really hope you all enjoy this one; it was probably the hardest book for me to rewrite. There were a lot of things wrong with this book and I had to take out over 10,000 words to get it back on track. But I’m pretty happy with it now. I know there are going to be some things in this book that upsets some of my readers, and I’m sorry for that, but I have to write the story based on the characters I created, not what would make my readers the most happy. But hopefully you’ll forgive me and stay on this journey with me.

Also, stayed tuned! Next month A Tale of Many Reviews is hosting a blog tour for Water! Follow along for reviews, interviews and giveaways! I have a lot of new swag that I cannot wait to give away to my readers!

Happy reading everyone!

Writing with Dyslexia

This is a huge topic to tackle because a lot of people don’t understand it. Dyslexia isn’t just a straightforward “disability;” it has many flavors and extremes. It’s taken all of my life to understand it, and to be honest with you, there are days where I still don’t understand what my brain is doing.

First of all, let’s clear up some definitions. There is Dyslexia, where you have trouble with letters and then there is Dyscalculia, where you have trouble with numbers. I have both unfortunately. It wasn’t until high school that I knew I had it and I actually was diagnosed with Dyscalculia first.

I not only inverted numbers, but I also invert the operations of problems. If the problem said I should multiply, I would divide and vice versa. So I would get the problem right, if the operation was reversed. I stood and argued with a math teacher one day while she tried to get me to understand what I did wrong and it hit me like a slap in the face. Suddenly I realized why I was nearly failing that class and my teacher had sympathy for me for the first time ever.

Now for Dyslexia there are so many different ways it can affect you. The most simple is the obvious inverting letters. Children often get ‘b’ and ‘d’ mixed up (I will actually write b when I want d and vice versa to this day), the whole ‘i’ before ‘e’ totally throws me. I mean when I write the world field, it looks wrong to me, I want to write it “f-e-i-ld” but thankfully Word auto corrects that for me.

Another way it gets people is what I refer to as the “assumption dyslexia” where you’ll see the start of a word and your brain assumes what is it and is wrong. One example would be “cornflakes” and “cornstarch”. I very rarely do that one.

One that I do without thinking about is similar to "assumption dyslexia", if words are out of order on a page, I can totally read them as if they aren't. So if a sentence says, "You're this reading wrong" I can totally see that as, "You're reading this wrong." I've been told a lot of people without Dyslexia can do this one though, so I'm not sure that's an actual symptom.

One that totally throws my husband off is when I’m very, very tired I can take one syllable of one word and a syllable of the next word and switch them around. Kinda like the saying “knucking futs” (sorry, I couldn’t think of another commonly known one! Lol!). I cannot do it if I try and I cannot do it if I think about it. I just do it without thinking.

But my most common and frustrating trait of my Dyslexia is misusing homonyms. People think I just don’t know the proper meaning or possibly I’m not using an editor or proof reader, but really it’s that I’m mixing up the words. Here is a list of the words I most often mix up:

It’s and its

Heel and heal

Past and passed

Affect and effect

Led and lead

Peal and peel

I’m sure if you ask my proofreader and beta readers, they would tell you there are more, but these are the ones I am aware of. I know the definitions of all of these words, I know the difference, but when I go to write them, I think I’m wrong and go for the wrong word. It’s a vicious cycle. I actually have a bright pink post-it note on my desk with the definition of “Its vs It’s” so if I find myself questioning my choice, it’s right there for me to see.

When I finish a book I do a search for every occurrence of those words I listed and check to see if I used them right. I often have to change all of them. In my YA series my characters almost never wear heels so I can almost guarantee I’ll change any occurrence of that one. I had someone give me a hard time after posting a bit of flash fiction (didn’t send it to my proofreader, it was flash fiction for goodness sake!) because the character was wearing heels and I said her “heals click-clacked on the tiles.” I know the dude didn’t know me and didn’t know I had Dyslexia; it was just his choice of words to point out my mistake. It was kinda bully-ish. I mean, why be mean about something? Then when I point out that I’m dyslexic, you sounds like a jackass rather than like you were trying to help me. Anyway.

So how do I deal with my Dyslexia while writing? I just do. I got through high school and college with it – pulling my teachers aside at the beginning of the year each year to tell them about my problem – now that I’m an adult I have no one to tell to help me out or give me some slack. I know it’s a problem, my proofreader and editor knows about it and my betas know about it so they tell me when they catch the mix ups. I keep a list of my most common mix ups and do the search function to make sure I caught ‘em all and then just pray there weren’t any other I missed. At least I can always update and reupload if I missed one or two.

And seriously, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m totally forgetting things that have just become commonplace to me now.

But I’ll tell you one thing: I will be the first to catch the misuse of your and you’re and two, too and to.

Tweet

April: Poetry Month Post III - Music

So I figured I should end the month on a happier poem, nothing angsty here. If you've been following along with me then you know how much music helps me write, helps me change my mood, just helps me. So this is what that's about.

Music

I am as peaceful as a Hindu cow
until the moment that beat pulses the floor
and the words penetrate my ears,
I am empowered with
a rage and a fury
that only the wind knows the language of.
I am engulfed and filled to burst,
a drowning victim
no longer fighting the current of
the crushing oblivion.
I know nothing
outside of this perfect moment,
created just for me.

Tweet

April: Poetry Month Post II - Waking Sleep

Moving right along with the Official Poetry Month, I give you: Waking Sleep. I wrote this in 2008 in the middle of a serious, serious insomnia stretch. I hadn't slept more than a couple of hours in five or so days and during one of those sleepless nights, staring at the computer, I wrote this.

Waking Sleep

Never really asleep but not quite awake.
Drifting, sifting through the half-minded
hallucinations and real conversations.
I feel lost even though I haven't left the house.

2 hours here and 12 there, a math equation
that d o e s n o t add up and only equals
a hang over without the preceding fun.
I am cheated, suffering through the punishment
of a crime not committed.

The clock ticks away the p.m. threatening the a.m.
and I've stopped counting how many hours
I could get if I fell asleep in the next five minutes
because that was 59 minutes ago
and a decent night flew out the window
with the infomercial madness.

I cannot, cannot be awake
because, because I have yet to fall
asleep.

Tweet