A is for.... Anger

Welcome to my first post in the A-Z blogfest.

My partner, Andrew, was adamant I should write this first post about him, but sorry, darling. Not this time. I also should possibly write this about my new niece, Amelia, who was born yesterday. Welcome to the world, Amelia. Sorry I won't get to see you until... well, whenever I can save enough money to come to the US, or when you can come down here.

But enough waffling. I have chosen Anger as my topic for the letter A. Why? Because I have spent much of the week being angry. Work has been causing me stress, and that makes me angry. I'm not working on any new project yet, and I think not having that is also contributing to my anger. But I will be starting on that new project next week.

So. Anger. There are many different kinds of anger, and people have a huge range of ways of expressing it. When writing a scene in which a character is angry, it's important to show the right details.

Perhaps it's a low grade, seething fury. The character wouldn't yell or scream or break things. He'd be tight lipped, curt, trying to contain it. Perhaps is an outburst, in which case the character might hurl things, go red-faced and holler obscenities. Or maybe not. Perhaps this character tends to restrain his anger. Maybe his voice gets softer, his face white and pinched.

Everyone deals with anger differently, and finding the right way for your character to express it, is important. In Tail Lights, one of my characters, Tony, is a very controlled person. Throughout the book he's confronted with things that make him mad. He knows he's mad, but he chokes back the fury. He pushes it aside. You can only do that for so long. So, when he finally finds an outlet for his ire, you'd better believe it's an explosive scene.

On the other hand, my other character, Lucy, also has a lot to be angry about. She doesn't bottle it up though. She acts on her anger right away, doing things she's probably sorry for later. The contrast between the two makes for other conflict. And you can't have great stories without conflict, can you?

How do your different characters express their anger?

Heads up!

Just letting you know that I will be taking part in the A-Z blogging challenge throughout April. In this, we blog every day except Sundays, starting with the letter A and finishing with Z. It should be fun! I just have to think about what to blog about each day....

So, see you tomorrow for the letter A!

Pottering

I'm feeling kind of at a loose end. I finished the draft of Tail Lights a week ago, and am not quite ready to dive into a new novel just yet, so I'm pottering. I've been trying out new query letters for A9. I've been trying (without much success I have to say) to write a synopsis of A9 too. Do you guys hate synopses as much as me? I've been fiddling with some short story ideas too.

I've also been having a rather stressful time at work over the past week, and that isn't helping with my creative productivity. Sometimes it just isn't possible to block out the distractions. Especially when the distractions are big enough to keep me from sleeping. Nothing usually does that. I don't sleep a lot, but when I do, I sleep hard. This week? Lots of lying awake at 3am trying to distract myself with stories that will probably never be written.

I hope by the beginning of next week all the work-stress will be resolved. I need to settle down and decide what I'm going to work on next and how I'm going to approach it.

And I need to figure out how to make this damned synopsis work. Anyone have any guidelines or examples that work?

A question for the blogosphere

Okay, here's one that I haven't been able to find an answer to anywhere online. So I'm turning to you, my fellow writers, for an answer.

My book, Assignment 9, weaves together two narratives that take place in completely different timeframes. When writing a synopsis, should I be following the chronology of the book, or summarize each of the plot threads on its own? I've tried doing it both ways, and neither really works for me. Is there a standard way to do this or not? I'm afraid that by following the book's pattern, the whole thing sounds jumbled and insane, but doing it the other way doesn't illustrate the way the book flows together.

Should I maybe only go into detail with one plot and just use a few lines to explain that there is a framing story that weaves between it?

Help! Does anyone know the answer to this knotty problem?

Not yoga....but close

A couple of months back, I was invited to guest post on agent Weronika Jancuzk's blog. This is the post I wrote for that. I thought it may be of interest, so without any further ado...

NOT YOGA, BUT CLOSE!

STRETCHING AND CHALLENGING YOURSELF AS A WRITER

As a writer, it’s easy to sink into a comfort zone.

“I write paranormal romance,” or “I’m a spec fiction writer”. But is that all you can write? Break away from what you think you write best, and you might be surprised by the result. Doing something different is also a fantastic way to break through writers’ block. I always have at least 3 projects on the go at one time, so if I get stuck on one, I can work on another. Nine times out of ten, by the time I get stuck on project number 2 or 3, the problem in project 1 has resolved itself.

Maybe you always write in third person. Challenge yourself to write in first person. I always hated present tense writing. If I opened a book on the library shelf and saw it was written in the present tense, even if I loved the blurb on the cover, I’d stick it right back. So I forced myself to write in present tense, and now I love it. Most of my recent work, including my latest novel is written in present tense.

If you’re a novelist, try writing something short. Flash fiction is usually under 1000 words. See if you can write a story with a beginning, middle and end in 1000 words or less. Not so hard? See if you can do it in 500. Try writing a story in 100 words, without repeating a single one. Not even ‘a’ or ‘I’ or ‘and’. These exercises are fantastic if you tend toward wordiness in your prose. There’s nothing like a word limit to force you to tighten and trim.

Switching genres can be liberating too. In my writing group we challenged each other to write and publish outside the genres we usually write in, and the results have often been spectacular. My first published story in 2010 was fantasy, a genre I’ve always loathed and never thought I’d ever write. But doing it was exciting, thrilling even, like negotiating darkness without a flashlight.

The second round of this challenge threw two randomly generated genres at me: sports and western. I’m not at all interested in sports, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a western, so these genres had me scratching my head raw at first. But in the end, not one, but two wildly different pieces came to me. One is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi about an alcoholic ex-champion racer left behind on an abandoned Earth. The other turned into a novel I’m still working on, Prayer and Prey, a romance set against the tail end of the Victorian gold rush.

I’m lucky to have a wonderful group of writers to push me out of my comfort zone, but you don’t need other people to challenge you. It can be as simple as pulling a headline out of your local paper at random, and writing a piece based on that. Or throwing genres into a hat and pulling one out each week or month. Trawl the deadline calendar on Duotrope and challenge yourself to submit a story to a themed publication. Even if it doesn’t get published, you will have done something different, something that stretches your imagination to places you may not have thought it could go.

The stories may not always work. They may never see anything but the inside of your hard-drive, but the process of writing something new and probably difficult, will extend you as a writer. Perhaps when you crawl back into that comfort zone, something from the outside will creep in with you and make that knotty spot in your MS a little less knotty.

So I’m challenging you. This week, this month, step away from what you usually write, and try something you’ve never tried before. And let me know how it goes, okay?

And.....Done

Nothing like a huge rainfall of disappointment to kick me in the butt. After wallowing around in my despair hole for he morning (and dealing with several very tricky, messy situations at work) I plonked myself in front of Tail Lights and resolved to finish this re-write before bedtime. In fact, I swore I would not go to bed until it was done.

And it is...

Well, as near to done as a fully re-written second draft can be. There's a chapter toward the beginning I want to rewrite, and there are odd bits and pieces of information I need to sprinkle through, but it's nearly there. I'm going to work on those things I know I need to do for the next couple of days, then I'm going to put the book aside for a week, work on something else, or maybe just take a week off to get a pile of new queries out on A9.

Then, I'll read through and see what I need to tweak and change, make those changes and send the book out to my critique partner.

Then, back to rewrites. My goal is to have this book as done as I can get it by October. Realistic?

Down and Out

The 500 Quarterfinalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award were just posted, and Assignment 9 was not one of them. I'm disappointed, but going through the 250 YA entries, of the 4 other people I know who made it through the first cut, only one has made it through. And one of them has an incredible book, one I think is far better than mine.

But them's the breaks. At the end of the day, it all comes down to who your reviewers were and their personal taste. So, I'll wallow a little today, feel a little sorry for myself, but tomorrow I'll be back in the query trenches, ready to foist my little story on the world.

I think it also helps that I'm probably going to finish my rewrite of Tail Lights today or tomorrow. There's nothing like the exhilaration of finishing a project.

Did any of the rest of you make it through to the Quarters? Le us know so we can root for you.

Show Me The Voice blogfest!

And as the date is nigh, without further ado, here's my entry to the Show Me The Voice blogfest.

Name: Kate Larkindale

Title: Assignment 9

Genre: YA Contemporary

He’s going to call on me. He’s going to call on me and I’ll probably puke. There are only twelve of us in this class - seven boys and five girls – so it won’t take too long before it’s my turn. I can picture Ian, the tutor, striding to my desk, his green eyes fixed on me. “Kiersten?” he’ll say. “You’re up. Let’s hear about you.” It’s so real, I almost stand up to present my work in progress.

Work in progress? I’ve made no progress on this so-called work. I have no idea how to start writing this. We were given the assignment - an autobiography – right before Christmas break and all month I’ve been putting it off. Now Ian’s expecting something. A draft perhaps, or at least a detailed outline. But I have nothing. Slumped in my seat, I look down at the scarred tabletop before me, letting my hair fall over my face like a veil. I squint through the curtain it makes, at the orange glow in the glare from the near-dead fluorescent tube that hums and buzzes above me, disrupting my chain of thought. I work knots out of my hair with my fingers as I struggle to think where to begin. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and the more I think, the more certain I am my story began longer ago than I ever imagined.

I pray the class will end before Ian reaches me. I even pray for Alice Wilkins to be called on before me.

And another really cool contest.

This one is for pitches.

Two sentences only, plus your first line.

Go on! You know you want to...

Another Awesome Contest

If you don't already follow this blog, get on over there for their 300 followers contest. You can win a query or first chapter critique!

What are you waiting for?

Where to next?

I'm closing in on finishing my revision of Tail Lights. I'm thinking I probably have 8 chapters to go. Maybe only 6, if I can cram a lot of stuff into each one.

So, of course, my tricky little brain has started thinking ahead and is tempting me with shiny new ideas for my next project. I have a basic idea for a new book, but I'm going to save it for NaNo since writing a first draft quickly seems to work well for me (who knew?). P & P needs revising, but I'm not 100% inspired by doing that just now. Maybe later.

No, what is really piquing my interest is my first book (okay, it's not my first; just the first I'll admit to) Holding It Together. I've worked and reworked this book a lot, and it never worked for me. I wrote it in 3rd person and it didn't really work, so I rewrote it in 2 first person POVs, but the two characters are brothers and very alike so the voices were too similar. Now, the idea is kicking around my skull that I should choose one of those 2 POVs and rewrite it from that.

But which voice to choose... Shaynne, the older of the two, it the obvious choice, and perhaps the easiest one. But I'm thinking I might try to write the piece from Chris's. Seeing Shaynne's obvious character flaws through the eyes of the younger brother who adores him might be interesting. I'm just not sure if I have enough skill as I writer to do it.

So I will let the idea keep brewing while I knock out these last Tail Lights chapters, and maybe in April I'll start playing around with my favorite old story again...

What happens to you at the end of a major project? Do you rest? Panic? Start something new right away?

Win something cool!

My friend Cassandra is having a contest and you could win a free substantial edit of your MS. I've used Cassandra's services in the past, and can thoroughly recommend her.

So get over there and enter!

Writing saves $$$$

I was thinking the other night about how many things I used to do, I just don't do anymore because I'd rather write. And not doing these things is saving me money (which, given the amount my house is sucking up at the moment, is probably a good thing.)

I don't go out to the movies often (I watch films for a living so why would I?), I rarely go to the theatre, I never go out to dinner unless it's my birthday or anniversary and going to see live music is a thing of the past. I don't go to bars or hang out in cafes with my friends.

I used to almost always have a glass of wine or two with my dinner, but now, because I want to write after the kids go to bed, I rarely allow myself that luxury. I do occasionally indulge myself with a browse through a clothing store, but it's almost always one of the two local charity stores, so even if I do buy something, it's only a few dollars. And because it's going to the Red Cross or SPCA, I don't feel bad about it.

So I have to say, while thus far, writing isn't making me money (career total to date is $22US), it is certainly saving me some. And that has to be good, right?

Have you given anything up to write? What is it? And do you miss it?

A Very Special Birthday Contest.

A lovely Brazilian writer, Gabriela Lessa, is having a birthday today. Happy Birthday Gabriela!

To celebrate, she's hosting a contest. And I'm entering. So, here are the first 312 words of my WIP. Apologies to those who read the 550 words I posted in the blogfest earlier this week... I do try not to repeat myself.... And apologies for the weird ending. 312 words ended in a strange place.

TITLE: Chasing the Tail Lights

GENRE: YA Contemporary

STATUS: WIP

The darkness is absolute. For a moment I’m not sure if my eyes are open or closed. I strain to push the lids up, but they’re already wide. Not a pinpoint of light penetrates the space I’m in. Something covers my mouth and nose, making breathing difficult. My lungs burn for air, but I can only suck in tiny mouthfuls through whatever smothers my face.

I turn my head, crying out as a savage bolt of pain shoots through it. For a moment I waver on the edge of consciousness, wavy grey lines wafting across the blank space before my eyes. I struggle to keep my wits about me - what’s left of them - fighting the the darkness threatening to drown me. I gasp for breath, certain now I won’t pass out. Reaching out my left hand, I try to find something to hold onto. My fingers scrabble over some small objects, pebbles perhaps, that skitter away beneath my touch. I reach further, wrapping my fingers around them. Pain prickles through my fingertips. Not pebbles. Glass. Small, sharp shards of glass.

Using my scored digits, I drag myself forward, an inch, maybe two. A huge weight pins my legs to the ground. I can’t move them, can’t even feel them. Raising my head, I see light. Not a lot of light, but light. Red light, bright at one end, dull at the other. I know what this is. I do. My heart thumps at the side of my head and I can almost hear the gears of my brain creaking to make sense of this weird red glow.

A taillight.

I let my throbbing head drop as a reward, a surge of relief passing through me at this small achievement. It’s a taillight. But why is it up there? What is up there? And if that’s there, where am I? The

ADD in reading

First up, I'd like to thank everyone who read and commented on my 550 words in the Catch Me If You Can blogfest. Great feedback! It was fascinating to see what people thought.

A lot of people liked it just as it was, slowly unfolding so the reader makes discoveries alongside the character, but several thought it moved too slowly, and wanted to move onto dialogue sooner. This interests me.

I think attention spans in this day and age have shrunk drastically. I blame any number of things: music videos, Twitter, computer games, television. But I also think it's a shame. Sometimes things do take time to unfold. Sometimes you have to invest some attention into understanding or enjoying something. Not everything is instant gratification.

I have the same issue with movies. These days it's rare for a director to let a scene play out. It's all chop chop in the editing room, cutting the film so we never linger in any one place, or shot for too long. In some films a frenetic pace like that works. In others, not so much. I admire film makers who dare to keep the camera in one place and let the scene unfold. It's a much braver choice.

And it's the same with books. Gorgeous writing should be savored. If I'm loving a writer's way with words, I don't want to be rushed from plot point to plot point. I want to flow through the book on a river of fine prose. I'd like to think that's what I'm doing in my own book. How I express the events and emotions is as important to me as the actual events. I'm writing a book about people. What happens to them is important, but how they see the events and how the events affect them is equally important, and sometimes it takes a little time for them to recognize these things.

Do you wish things could slow down a little sometimes?

Catch Me If You Can Blogfesst

I stumbled upon this just now, and decided it would be a good thing to do.

So without any further ado, here are the first 550 words of Chasing The Tail Lights, my current WIP...

The darkness is absolute. For a moment I’m not sure if my eyes are open or closed. I strain to push the lids up, but they’re already wide. Not a pinpoint of light penetrates the space I’m in. Something covers my mouth and nose, making breathing difficult. My lungs burn for air, but I can only suck in tiny mouthfuls through whatever smothers my face.

I turn my head, crying out as a savage bolt of pain shoots through it. For a moment I waver on the edge of consciousness, wavy grey lines wafting across the blank space before my eyes. I struggle to keep my wits about me - what’s left of them - fighting the the darkness threatening to drown me. I gasp for breath, certain now I won’t pass out. Reaching out my left hand, I try to find something to hold onto. My fingers scrabble over some small objects, pebbles perhaps, that skitter away beneath my touch. I reach further, wrapping my fingers around them. Pain prickles through my fingertips. Not pebbles. Glass. Small, sharp shards of glass.

Using my scored digits, I drag myself forward, an inch, maybe two. A huge weight pins my legs to the ground. I can’t move them, can’t even feel them. Raising my head, I see light. Not a lot of light, but light. Red light, bright at one end, dull at the other. I know what this is. I do. My heart thumps at the side of my head and I can almost hear the gears of my brain creaking to make sense of this weird red glow.

A taillight.

I let my throbbing head drop as a reward, a surge of relief passing through me at this small achievement. It’s a taillight. But why is it up there? What is up there? And if that’s there, where am I? The questions whirl dizzying circles around my skull. What day is it? I struggle to remember. What did I have for breakfast? My eyes fix on the taillight, broken I realize, staring into it as if hypnotized. That’s why it’s brighter at one end.

More light. White this time, sweeping in an arc across me. I blink, dazzled by the flood of brightness. All around me I see fragments glinting in the beam, tiny jewels strewn across what I can now see is a road. The yellow line is inches from my nose. Why am I lying in the middle of the road? Ghostly music drifts in my direction. A song I know, an oldie, The Beach Boys. It makes no sense here, must be in my head. I try to drag my other arm forward, wanting to raise myself onto my elbows for a better perspective. It won’t move. Pain rocks through my shoulder, my chest and courses up my neck to my still-aching head. The heavy, metallic scent of blood hangs over me. When I glance back down at the road, I see the yellow line is smeared red.

The slamming of a car door breaks through the dull thumping in my skull, chases the music away for a moment. Footsteps scuff across the gravel, heading away from where I lie.

“I’m here!” I cry, unsure if the voice I hear is my own.

Show Me The Voice blogfest!

I'm going to be doing it... Are you?

Show me the Voice

Distractions

Do you ever find when things aren't running smoothly in your writing, that distractions begin to get... well, distracting? I don't usually have a problem with ignoring the pile of laundry in the corner, or turning down the invitation to go out, or switching off the TV when there's something on I might enjoy. But this week, it's been hard. I set myself a goal of 5 chapters a week to be edited or written, with the idea that I'd be finished with this second draft by the end of March. This week I think I got through two. Okay, they were new chapters that I had to write from scratch, so are a little trickier than rewriting existing material, but still...

I got distracted.

I wrote a short story instead of working on my book. Okay, it was about the same characters, but 20 years later, so it didn't actually do anything to get the draft finished.

I read two books. Both I enjoyed, but neither helped to get the draft finished.

I went to see a play. It was clever and I was reminded how much I like going to live theatre, something I do very rarely these days. But I lost an entire night of writing time, so it didn't help to get the draft finished.

I did a lot of critiquing for my writing friends. Four chapters last night alone! It's a give and take community, right? I was doing my bit. But it didn't help to get the draft finished.

And today, I'm going up the coast to my friend's house with the boys. It'll be fun (I hope - it's raining here in town, so I have my fingers crossed it'll be nicer up there), but once again, it's not going to get the draft finished.

I have to resolve to get back on track this week. Yet I've already conceded to distraction on Wednesday by making an appointment for a haircut bang smack in the middle of my Wednesday writing time. Maybe it's a sign the book isn't working. Or maybe it's a sign I've been working too hard on it and need a little break. I don't know. I guess I'll just forge on, the best I can, and see what happens....

How do you block out distraction?

Writing motivation

In the past two days I've had three different people ask me how I motivate myself to write when I have so many other things to do with my life. Including my mother. What is it that compels me to write in every free moment I can find between a fairly demanding job, kids and trying to maintain a home?

So I've been thinking about it, and you know what? It's not all that easy to answer. It's not like I have a deadline to meet, or any reader expectations yet. The acceptances are nice, but they're few and far between. Especially lately, since I've been so focused on novel writing, I haven't even submitted any short stories to publications.

I guess the honest answer is, I can't stop. Writing is like breathing. I'd feel funny if I didn't do it every day. I keep telling myself one day I will be able to go to my local library, look under 'L' and find my book sitting there, along with all those other great 'L' authors. That dream is enough to motivate me to sit down in front of my computer again, open up the document I've trawled through hundreds of times already, and try to cast an objective eye across it one more time.

I have to admit though, with winter approaching and the days getting shorter, that hour in the mornings before the kids get up is getting harder. I'm not sure how I'll handle it once the temperature drops too, and I'm forced to sit, shivering over the keyboard in three layers of sweaters and gloves. But I'll keep that vision of my book cover in mind, and I'll shiver my way through winter. Hopefully by then, the builder will have replaced the missing walls....

How do you motivate yourself to write? And do you ever find your drive to create flagging?

Pack mule

I'm a pack mule. Or maybe I just feel like one. I'm the one you'll see staggering down the street under a pile of grocery bags, swimming stuff and piles of books, papers and a laptop. I don't drive and always seem to be having to carry half my life wherever I go. I probably don't need to be paying for that gym membership....

Which of course brings me to the other thing on my mind: money, or more specifically, the distinct lack of it. Did I mention my house? Or should I say, the black hole into which money is sucked? I decided to get it painted this summer. After owning it 13 years, I felt it was time. I knew a few little things needed fixing, but when the builder started on those things, he found other things that also needed repairs. And now it seems I'm having the entire house re-built from the ground up... almost. One of the painters set a corner of the house on fire with his heat gun early in the process, and I'm beginning to wonder if it might not have been better to let the entire thing go up in flames. Then I could have taken the insurance and started from scratch...

So as you can probably imagine, I have a lot on my mind as well as on my back. Yet the rewrite I'm doing on Tail Lights is going more smoothly than any rewrite has before. I'm writing new chapters at the moment to fill in gaps in the middle section, but hope to be finished with them by next week, and heading into the final part of the book. I've pledged to finish by the end of March, and then it will be off to my gorgeous critique partner to be ripped to shreds.

Anyone else got major March goals? Share them here so we can cheer you on!