ADD Writer Is — OH HAI, A FLOWER.

Tags

cliched inspirational phrases galore!, doing what you love, loving what you do, projects, rain, spring, writing

…Yeah, that about covers it. 🙂

Which is not to say it’s nice here in the Great State of Eternal Flooding. We’re thoroughly waterlogged and all pausing for a 1.3-million-strong collective sob every time that weird ball of fire has a tiny, plot-irrelevant, my-cousin-can’t-act-but-he-really-wanted-to-be-in-a-movie-can-you-put-him-in-the-angry-mob-scene cameo in the sky. In other words, it’s spring, and we hope summer gets here fast.

The only good thing about weather like this is I don’t have many excuses for not writing. Yardwork would be like a one-woman mud-wrestling contest: The Writer Vs. The Poor Footing. I’m hardly about to go for a bike ride. Spring cleaning…well, any reason to avoid that is a good one, really: rain will do. Even Her Dogginess refuses to go for walks in this.

So here I am, with plenty of after-work time on my hands and the plot of a sequel screeching in my ears, and what do I do?

Well, I’ve caught up on House MD. I’m working on Fringe. Also I’m trying to learn to play the Game of Thrones theme on the keyboard, a fairly laughable effort so far, but I’ll get there eventually. I sewed a few loose buttons back onto my favorite coat.

Oh, and I’ve written scenes for two other WsIP, because that’s pretty much how I roll at the beginning of Any. Freaking. Book. I don’t know why, but the moment I lock in on something, I get wonderful ideas for something else. It’s my brain’s version of comedic timing, I guess.

So I’m floating at the moment – forward progress, and a decent amount of it, but spread between projects it doesn’t look like a lot. I am, however, enjoying myself, and after a year of letting this industry get me a bit down followed by a wildly-focused month of rediscovering what it feels like to write what I love, I’ve decided that’s what matters. If I’m not having fun, there’s not much point.

What is everyone else working on?

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books!

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authors in spring, Barry Lyga, books, goodreads, Grave Mercy, I Hunt Killers, reading, Robin LaFevers, writing

…Yeah, it’s been a while. You knew that would happen though: it does every year, when the snow melts and the trees bud and the air starts to have that fabulous green smell in it again. I’ll get over it –I’d have to, or be useless pretty much from April to October– but for the nonce I am the World’s Most Distracted Writer, hieing off from scene to backyard the second a warm breeze blows in from the open window.

Also, we have kind of a lot to do around the house this year. I am working too. Really.

Anyway, since writing is something I do in 10-minute increments these days, I thought I’d probably better post about something else, and what better than some amazing new books? Or, well, new to me, anyway. I joined
Goodreads some time ago, but only started really using it in the last few months, and I have to say, if you’re not on it? Go join. I’m not sure yet how I feel about it as a promotion tool for authors –if you’re involved in the reviewer community or just ever on twitter, you’ve probably seen the kerfluffles that pop up now and then when an author responds to a bad review of their book (and by the way, for the love of dog, Don’t. Do. That, people, good gods)– but as a tool for readers, it’s amazing. I’ve discovered more amazing books on there than I could ever have hoped to do on my own.

Anyway. Plug over. Onto the books!

Book the first: GRAVE MERCY, by Robin LaFevers.

Assassin nuns. I could leave it there, because really, you know you want to read it now, but I won’t. The main character, a 17 year old farmer’s daughter in medieval Brittany, escapes a bad marriage at the last minute to become a nun in a convent dedicated to the God of Death, whose daughter, it turns out, she is. From there it’s all court intrigue and international politics and a tense whodunnit mixed with romance and history, all woven around the story of one girl’s growth into a woman who makes her own choices regardless of her loyalties. Just read it. You can thank me later.

Book the second: I HUNT KILLERS, by Barry Lyga

Pro tip: don’t read this one when you’re alone in the house. For some reason I didn’t expect it to creep me out, and I was very, very wrong about that. Which makes sense, as it’s about serial killers — and I mean, all about them. Jasper Dent is the son of the country’s most famous serial killer: he was raised in the midst of one long crime scene, and spent most of his free time taking care of his dad’s trophies. While other kids were learning to catch a ball, Jasper was learning to separate a knee in less than 5 minutes, or to identify a good victim. Since his dad’s arrest he’s been trying to put his life back together, but being raised by a man who murders people for fun –and who is training you to do the same– is a whole new kind of baggage. And when a new serial killer comes into town and the police can’t put together the clues that seem so obvious to him, Jasper has to decide if he’s destined to hunt down men like his dad… or to follow in his father’s footsteps.

It’s a gorgeous, dark, twisted story. I highly recommend it — but fair warning: this one’s definitely not for the weak-stomached.

So there you are. Go forth and buy, and all that.

new (old) beginnings

Tags

cuba libres, early-morning-rambles, inspiration, muses, routine, sequels, synopsis writing, writing

Well, I lived through the Dread Synopsis. I whinged rather a lot, which probably added a decent handful of hours to the process, and I surfed the internets plenty, which no doubt added more. Step 10 of the previous post got plenty of exercise. Rum and Coke, I’ve found, is a helpful addition to the creative process, so long as you keep it to two. More than that and, well.

…The less said on that, the better, probably.

Anyway. If any of you peoples are gearing up for one of these and hate it like fire on a boat full of tarantulas in the middle of a cyclone in the Bermuda Triangle like I do (really: it was almost that bad), this is the advice I finally settled on –well, that and this— out of the several-hundred pages of synopsis-writing advice I read.

And now I move onto the Next Big Thing. Maybe. I should be, and sporadically am, revising my MS. I have fabulous feedback from almost all of my also-fabulous betas and there is, after all, a looming deadline on this one.  And I am, but because I’m also me, and I can’t do anything simply, I’m looking at the sequel I already re-wrote once and thinking hey, that needs a YA reboot too!

Probably I should ignore me this time. But we all know I won’t.

I tried, I will say that. I have about 10 other projects I could work on instead,  not to mention the revision. I started my weekly writing group hour-of-focus (hah!) planning to pick up something completely different, give my head a break from these characters, achieve some needed distance before diving into revisions, be sensible (stop laughing, I do manage to be sensible sometimes)…

And wrote, out of nowhere and with no malice-er, thought aforethought, a new beginning to, surprise, the sequel to this MS.

Brilliant.

I’m not one to go on about muses and following inspiration: I do believe this is a job, and routine is what saves you on the days when muses, inspiration, and the general feeling that you’re not completely wasting your time and maybe you should take up something less effort-intensive, like, say, parasailing all fail. Putting in the time regardless of whether you actually have anything to say is important.

And yet. I write in one of my 10 other waiting-in-the-wings-for-their-turn projects, all of which have a decent shot at becoming good books, and that’s what it feels like: clocked time. I wrote that new sequel beginning, and all sorts of neurons I’d forgotten I had lit up and started shouting it should end this way! and this will be the major catalyst for the mid-book turning point! and check it out, dude– a theme!

(That last little neuron may be permanently soaked in cuba libres. :P)

Anyway. I’ve always been a plan-it-out kind of writer: my books have detailed outlines, schedules, word count goals, and a kind of birth-order personality thing going for them. I definitely value routine over inspiration: routine shows up every day, whereas inspiration is kind of like sunshine in March –it’s almost always a surprise, and you take it whenever you can get it and hope it lasts for more than 5 minutes.

Nevertheless, when I get this much sunshine in my head, I’m hardly going to fight it.

well, it’s THAT time…

Tags

Amy doesn't like My Heart Will Go On, pro-level procrastinating, revising, writing, writing a synopsis

…Synopsis time, that is, or as I like to call it, hide-under-the-covers-and-pretend-I-collect-stamps time.

Seriously, anyone who has ever written one of these, or tried to write one of these, or just spent more than ten minutes thinking about writing one of these, knows it doesn’t really get much worse than this. I’ve scrapped 75K of plotless MS and started over; I’ve outlined; I’ve rewritten an entire book to change the genre; I’ve R&Rd, I’ve log-lined, I’ve STETed– hell, I’ve queried.

I’d happily do all of it again simultaneously, while riding a unicycle and singing a polka cover of My Heart Will Go On, if it meant I could avoid this bit.

My process, such as it is, will probably look like this:

1. Write a sentence.
2. Re-read all 200+ pages of Failblog.
3. Write a paragraph.
4. Post a moaning status update on FB, spend 45 minutes trading comments with fellow writers who have also suffered/are suffering.
5. Delete the paragraph.
6. Surf the internet for advice on synopsis writing, all of which I’ve already read, printed out, and tacked to the wall beside me so I don’t forget what I’m supposed to be doing.
7. Write two paragraphs.
8. Mourn the untimely death of my motivation.
9. Re-read the submission guidelines of my targets.
10. Make myself a drink.
11. Moan on FB again.
12. Delete the two paragraphs.
13. Make myself another drink.
14. Stare morosely at the screen and think about stamp collecting.
15. Enjoy the irony of Step 6.
16. Write a synopsis.
17. Hate the synopsis.
18. Start over at step 1.

It takes a lot longer this way. 🙂

 

teaser Tuesday has a knife and isn’t afraid to use it

Tags

distractions, epic fantasy, new projects, teaser Tuesday, writing

So here I am, a week later, still trying to get my brain out of SWORD. That’s always been an issue for me, particularly with books in this world. I slip into these characters’ heads far more easily… which means I’m far more sure of myself while writing, but it also means it takes far longer for me to move on when I hit THE END. Right now a familiar turn of phrase, or hearing one of the songs from my writing playlist, is enough to put me back into the ridiculous pitch of angst that pretty much defines the whole second half of that book.

Luckily, after a year of barely moving on anything, I have plenty of projects to fiddle with. 🙂 This one isn’t much more than a vague idea right now: something set in the same world, but kind of– sideways. I have no idea if it’s going to go anywhere, but it’s fun to play with.

***

“Be at ease,” Guy grunted, setting the saddlebag on the small table. “I thought you a spy, girl. I’d no notion Evrard was recruiting his couriers from the fields.”

Her chin lifted ever so slightly. So she had some pride.

“Tavern,” she shot back. It was almost comical under the circumstances.

“All the same to me,” Guy retorted, and as the girl ducked her head he reached and wound her hair in his fist, forcing her gaze to his. “What message?” he asked pleasantly, his other hand curling in the folds of her woolen skirt. She drew a breath, beginning to tremble. Her gaze was fierce and outraged, hinting at a strength possibly worth the effort of breaking… and that was very well. There was little else to hold his attention out here in the back of beyond. “No games now, girl: I’ll have your head as readily as feed you supper if you aren’t quick with your answers. The one’s less work than the other is all. Tell your message. Is the north mustering?”

“Nay, ain’t –o lord please–” Her breath caught. She shivered harder, teeth clenched.

“Aye, you might beg, little messenger girl. Beg me, and mayhap I’ll let you loose tomorrow: but tonight, you keep me warm.” He pulled her closer, his fingers finding chilled flesh under wool, her desperately trying to back away and having no luck at all. Guy brought her close enough to press his face to her neck and caught the surprising scent of lilacs on her skin. “Why else would my lord send me a girl for a courier, eh?”

She stopped shivering.

“He wouldn’t, Lord Elliott,” she said, right into his ear.

There was a second only, to register the sudden absence of a common accent, the utter fearlessness in flesh against his– then, too late, the quick thrust of her hand. He felt the blade slide up under his ribs, a sensation that at first was perceived only as a terrible invasion, and in the next instant turned to breathtaking pain.

She twisted it.

He sucked in a breath to scream but it bubbled in his chest, filling his mouth with the awful taste of blood. His hands wouldn’t obey him. His knees went, and the girl, with odd solicitousness, bore his weight down gently to the dirt. She stared. Her dark eyes were wide and wild. Her first, Guy understood, and couldn’t help a moment’s fleeting admiration. His men wouldn’t know until they came to bring the evening meal, which was at least an hour from now.

She would be long since gone by then, and so would he.

Mission: not so impossible

Tags

epic fantasy, full rewrite, living with a writer is a bitch, revising, writing, YA fantasy

In other words, dear reader, I pulled it off.

Yes, this is me today. Really.

My rewrite is clocking in at an amazing 96K right now (that’s amazing mostly because I started at 101K and was convinced, halfway through, that I was going to wind up adding another 6 or 7K to the tally).

I’ve written 53,000 words in the last 28 days, or so Word tells me (hah: take that, failed NaNo attempt), I’ve become so much the definition of antisocial that my long-suffering husband is probably wondering if I’ve developed a very specific form of agoraphobia, and yesterday midway through the final 11-hour writing marathon, Her Dogginess flung herself down on the floor beside my desk and made this astonishing rrrroOOOOOWWwwar! noise that conveyed her boredom and her feelings on whose fault said boredom was fairly effectively.

Being a writer can be a bitch. Living with one, I suspect, is almost always a bit of a bitch.

Anyway. I have no idea what to do with myself this morning.

Tuesday’s Teaser is full of woe

Tags

fantasy, honeymoon phase, swoonage, teaser Tuesday, woe and other good words, writing, YA

…Mainly because I love that word, woe. I suppose Tuesday’s Teaser could just have easily been full of grace, the way the old song goes, but that probably wouldn’t have been nearly as accurate.

And, really, woe is just such a great word.

Anyway. Going full-bore on the WIP, still so swoonily happy with the work I’m doing that even I’m a bit sick of hearing me go on about it. It’s classic honeymoon phase, when you just can’t believe how wonderful everything is, and the wonderfulness of it all can only be expressed with lots of italics, and you have to tell everyone over and over again, and maybe you even pull a little of this:

–Or, well, maybe you just want to but it’s winter and you’re wearing layers, and also there aren’t really any hills around where you live, making it mercifully impractical. (And don’t feel obliged to listen to more than half a second of that: believe me, you’ll get the idea.)

The other shoe usually drops with impressive force from this state, so I’m just going to enjoy it while I can, mkay?

Anyway, a short teaser, and then I’ll go back to rubbing my hands with glee in between typing paragraphs.

***

Kyali drew her sword, heard the whisper of steel clearing sheaths all around her, and hooked her heels in the stirrups. Her pulse began to pick up. Her fingers clenched on the grip of the sword.

Snow, she told herself. Ice.

One day, if she kept trying and kept as far away from Devin and Jessica as she could, she might learn to feel nothing but cold. It was a worthy goal. It would be so much better than the fire waiting for her every night when she finally let herself sleep.

The crackle came closer. Closer.

Then the brush exploded, disclosing a man on horseback, a man doubled up in the saddle, clinging to the pommel and swaying loosely with every stride. Danyn Jerin’s-son rode close enough that Kyali could see the arrow, the blood coming from where he had his arm wrapped over his middle. His eyes locked on hers, full of a dazed distance that told her just how bad the wound was. She wrapped her fingers tighter around her sword and looked past him to where the trees were beginning to twitch and shudder and the sound of hoofbeats was rolling toward them.

Wedge formation, she signed, and took point without waiting for her men to move around her as the first of the Western band chasing her unlucky scout came rattling out of the woods.

They shouted, seeing her waiting for them, and raised shields. They never slowed.

“No prisoners!” she shouted, and kicked Ainhearag forward already swinging the sword. The first man died under the edge of her blade, still trying to get his sword into position.

in the zone

Tags

dream jobagge, revising, super bowl, working, writing

…Appropriate title for a post-Super Bowl Monday, no? I’m surprised I’ve never used it before.

As I’m writing this my FB wall is blowing up with howls-with-lots-of-capital-Os from Pats fans and howls-with-lots-of-exclamation-points from Giants fans, so I guess I know who just won.

Good thing I don’t care about football. 🙂  

Dear Readers, I’ve put in 10K in the last 6 days, and ohdamn does it feel good. To be working on something I love, to be working on something I believe I can sell… to be working at all, really, because forward motion on a project you don’t feel both of the above-mentioned things for can often feel more like marking time than working.

And yes, this feels like work: I know this story and these characters inside out, but anybody who has ever taken a plot apart and put it back together prettier can tell you, it’s still all elbow grease and smoking neurons. But it’s the difference between the minimum-wage drudge you take to pay the bills while you look for something better and the job where you wake up in the morning thinking about what you’re going to do that day and how much it will rock. I’m definitely having the latter experience right now. Enough so that I decided it was worth it to put the calling-cards back up on the blog, so if you want to read a teeny excerpt from my DreamJob book, it’s there.

Don’t all crowd in that direction at once, now.

distracted writer is distracted

Tags

focus, how many metaphors can Amy fit into one paragraph?, passion, persistence, pressure to write, routine, writing, writing what you love

But you know? I think I’m just going to go with it this time.

I’ve spent the better part of a year grimly clinging to one project or another while my brain basically did the bored-kid-in-the-backseat routine… kicking the back of my seat, fiddling with the windows while we’re on the highway, singing The Song That Never Ends loudly and off-key, and clocking the back of my head with a tiny, angry fist shouting no returns! whenever a VW Bug passes us.

(Can you tell I have younger siblings?)

Anyway. I’ve managed, more or less, to ignore this routine for the last 7 months. After all, writing a book is about focus and persistence as much as it is about talent and craft.

And I’m just going to go ahead and ignore the fact that I virtuously focused and persisted for 7 months on a project that was originally a distraction from a revision that was a distraction from a rewrite, because I think the irony might kill me. And hell, the process of slogging forward against the iron-fisted whims of my subconscious very nearly did that already.

Writing, particularly writing something book-length, is about persistence. It’s about putting words on the page even when you can’t think of anything to say. It’s about skipping that party your friends invited you to, confirming your reputation as a 30-year-old hermit, to get in another four pages and finish the damn scene. It’s usually about routine, and occasionally about guilt, and always about kicking yourself in the ass to jumpstart a sentence. It’s about pressure.

It’s also, however, about passion– because if you don’t love what you’re doing, chances are pretty good nobody else is going to either.

I think I kind of forgot that over the last half-year –I’ve been sitting on the pressure end of the scale for a long time now– but I had a reminder of the piano-falling-from-a-third-story-window variety last week, and I think maybe it’s time to follow the toddler in the backseat for a bit.

So I’m going to wander off and follow the shiny for a bit. Hopefully it’s not just a whole new way of procrastinating. 🙂

back to the daily…

Tags

my brain is not a morning person, procrastination, Tuesday teaser, writing, writing routine

…Struggle.

To find a routine, that is. During the warmer months, when it’s actually light outside before 7 am, I have no trouble getting up at 5:30 to write. I actually like it, if you can believe that –it’s perfectly quiet inside my head and outside of it, I know the phone win’t ring, my friends likely won’t be online, and coffee tastes particularly good when you still have sleep sand in the corners of your eyes, for some reason. It’s a good time to write. But there must be some seasonal trigger hiding in my brain, because it happens without fail every autumn: trees lose their leaves, squirrels waddle around glassy-eyed and lumpy-cheeked, and writers sleep in late.

Sadly, most of my best ideas come in the morning –right now, pretty much, about 20 minutes before I leave for work.

So, I’m working in it. Right now I write over lunch during the week and after work on the days when I don’t have something else going on –internet prime-time, unfortunately, so procrastination is like a pissed-off toddler bellowing noooo, mommmy, I want thaaaaat! in my ear the whole time. But I guess that’s good for self-discipline, right?

Anyway. Since I’m trying to be a good little blogger, and since it’s Tuesday and I could use something to keep my distractable self in line, here’s a teaser from the current WIP. Happy writing, peoples.

***

Unable to sit still for another second, Willa flung herself to her feet and stomped into the kitchen. “Willa!” Audrey yelped in pure outrage.

“I’m just getting drinks!” she hollered back, and leaned against the fridge for a moment. There were so many feelings trying to shove their unruly way out of her right now she could barely see straight. She knew she had no right to be angry at Audrey, who was just trying to help. And even less right to be angry at Perrin, who probably thought she was Darktown’s biggest freak now.

He didn’t know the half of it.

She spun, threw open the fridge and, on an impulse she didn’t feel like questioning, grabbed the six pack that had been sitting on the bottom shelf for the last few weeks.

Audrey’s eyes got huge when she brought that back into the living room.

“Okay, Willa, this is more serious than I thought.”

“Hey, Gritty’s” Perrin said happily, not a bit fazed by the sudden appearance of alcohol.

“It was Dan’s,” Willa said to Audrey’s raised eyebrows. “I can’t stand looking at it anymore.”

“Oh.” Audrey frowned at the beer like it might be hiding something. “Is it still good? That was weeks ago.”

Perrin was already tipping his bottle back, perfectly comfortable with the whole underage drinking scene, apparently. “It’s fine,” he said around it. “Beer takes a long time to go bad as long as you keep it cold.”

Audrey heaved a sigh and took a bottle, her forehead crumpled. Willa grabbed another one, trying to quell the little voice in her head screaming that she was going to get in trouble.

It wasn’t like Aunt Claudia was about to come downstairs and stop them, was it?

“Ugh,” she said a second later. “Now I know why I don’t drink.”

“This tastes like ass,” Audrey agreed, but she took another swallow. Willa smiled grimly and did the same. How did people learn how to like this taste? It was like moldy bread in liquid form. The bubbles were almost insulting.

Audrey pointed at her, eyes narrowed. “And now, Willa Presraka will start talking. Or I am going to dump this beer over her head.”

“It’s supposed to be good for your hair,” Perrin said helpfully.