Page 200

All writers have a goal to reach in their writing. They want to write X amount of words in a day--which would not work for me. Maybe just getting the first five chapters down is enough of a goal. And, of course there's the finished first draft.

For me it's in page numbers. I get to page 50--woohoo! Page 100 another chance to celebrate! Page 200--and with something like 69,215 words under my belt, that's another bit WOOHAA!

I follow a plot planner that shows me where the crisis point comes, and the "lull" (which doesn't mean lull in action, but it's sort of a time for the characters and reader to catch their breath and either figure things out or learn something they didn't know before, and more character developement, and maybe the dark moment could come here too. And possibly a sex scene thrown in for good measure. But I digress.

And then of course you begin the climb to the climax--not in the sex scene (that's a totally different matter entirely). This for me is usually at or around page 200. That's a signal for me to heat things up on my characters, make things happen, go wrong for no apparent reason and let the shit hit the fan.

When I've reached page 200 that tells me I've got to ratchet up the action, get people into their places on the stage. MY NOTES FOLLOW

SPOILER ALERT-! since this is #6 of the Sabrina Strong series:

My notes might look scrambled, but this is what I was fleshing out today:
Now I'm into chapter 24. A couple things need to happen.  First of all, or primarily I want to establish loss of a character. Sabrina knew Fritz, but not well. He was a nice guy (he had been injured on a vampire hunting jaunt, and in a coma for a few days). Why do nice people get killed? I don't know. It happens all the time. He/Fritz was going to college wanted to build/design cars. A very likeable person. But she has to feel Quist's loss--both as a human being, but as an empath as well, and it's tough on her.

But first this...
~A thought... what if Sabrina does see Bill (who is supposed to be dead-she saw him die)? Then what? If I keep him hidden the whole time up until the end, that's kind of stupid. I need a little friction. He doesn't want her to see him, but does, so what happens when she does?

It would create a moment of friction between the two:
Sabrina: shocked to see Bill alive and wonders why is he there at the towers?
Bill: horrified that she has seen him, and he can't hide his existence any more, because he's  supposed to be dead.

When I worked on these scenes I let each character work through their shock, think about it, but not too long before something else happens. For Sabrina she gets the call about Fritz having just died and she's going down to the hospital to console Quist, who was his best friend. I end the chapter right there.

Chapter 25
Bill has now reached a point where he's actually releived she's seen him. The questions she may have he is not able to answer even if she ever catches up to him, and so he tries to remain hidden, but he can't stay away from her because he is supposed to save her from some unknown horror predicted by the goddess Nemesis.

It's a good place for me to quit for the day. Let things tumble around in my head. I know what is to happen next because of other notes I've made, but this gives an idea of where I gauge when to begin working on the climb to climax.

And the ending to this one is going to be a real surprise and kicker. *smiling to myself* I'm so evil, and I know it.

This Rant is Brought to you by...

Okay, okay. I've been stewing for a while about this. I feel like a car stuck on ice, just spinning my wheels, and I've got so much potential under the hood, it's just so undignified I should sit here spinning my back tires like a dufus.

I usually take things well. Even disappointment, and the occasional set-backs. But what I have really come to hate is not knowing what's going on. I think that's what bugs me the most and why I've gotta go Indie.

There's all this "had I only but known" going on in my head right now... If I had known it would be nearly March before my third book in a series was out, I'd have done it by myself, but at that time--last May--I wasn't sure that I could do it. I mean you need a cover, you need people to read and edit it, and then I have no idea how to format.

But right now I've got a few of those problems figured out. When I thought that I was going to get edits from an editor and didn't (which, by the way was several months from submiting it, and what I got was not edits from the editor, but a finished product that was all ready to be published, and I could not, with good conscence put my A-OKAY on it because of numerous type-o's and a few other things I caught (which should have been caught by an editor), I thought I was sending off something that was corrected.

NOT!

So, what I had to do was go through it AGAIN. Write out every frigging problem, what page, and where it was found on the page, and that took another week of my time. Truthfully, I could have done better with the edits myself.

Meanwhile I'm working on several other WIP (books 4-6 of the series). One other book is close to being done. This is my ebook Spell of the Black Unicorn, which I self-pubbed (paperback) back in '08. Thankfully I didn't try and find another publisher for it.

But I've been working on the edits, and thanks to my beta reader, Shelly Arkon, I think this thing will see the light of publication some time this spring.

I may be in compitition with myself--one book as apposed to the other. But they are different enough, I don't think it will be a problem.

Well, this year is the year I go Indie, and I hope you, whoever you are, who stop by my lonely little blog, come along for the ride. I'm restricting most of the things I'm planning on doing for now, right here. But I will, from time to time post on my main blog.

And some day I might have book #3 out, with a little luck. I invite you all to come back and check things out. I'm waiting on the edge of my seat, as much as my fans, for this third one to be published.

When to Chuck it Out

I'm a Panster. And since I don't like outlining--to do so just wastes my time--the posibility that I will have to discard what I've written happens more than not on any WIP. You get so far and see where it's going and think Nah!

I was doing that in the 6th book WIP where I followed a scene till I realized I really didn't like it, or where it would wind up going. I could see I'd be following this secondary character way too much, and all I really wanted to do was to show his character since his "change".

As with any characters who have become part of Sabrina's story, I'm always trying to find some way of keeping it all fresh. Some characters who change either change for the good, or they've become evil/bad/dead. You need to kill a few of the evil ones off, but do so in a way that someone comes out the hero of the story, and the good ones, well, I need to bring them back because I think they could fulfil something in the plot that I need in a certain moment of drama--usually at the end.

So, when I got so far with this scene--which I thought was going well--I saw that it was going to involve that secondary character way too much, plus a tertiary character who was just introduced and I was beginning to not really like her, her life, and surroundings and knew I was never going to make her believable anyway...
So... delete,delete,delete.

But it's all good. If you get frustrated by the work you need to do, you need to ask yourself if you are up to the challenges of what it takes to actually make your WIP better. You may have to rip out whole chapters, and even characters from a WIP. You have to ask yourself the tough questions. I think I've been writing for so long, I know when that moment is, and without much thinking over it, I just get rid of it and start all over. They say you have to kill your darlings, and it's true. Sometimes they look somewhat like Frankenstein's monster when you're working on it. But when you get into the last drafts it should all come together as a whole and work--and no one sees the stitches!

So, I was wondering about this secondary character and how I wanted to make him different--not just another vampire--and where I wanted to go with him. It hit me this morning when I woke up. I knew what I had to do and got working on the concept. I had to do some research on Greek Mythology, and believe it or not found something that seemed as though it were made for what I needed. Since I'm so far ahead of my published work, I'm not going to say which character. I might start making people worry needlessly.

Until next time... keep on writing!

The Writing Goes on, and on, and on...

Last night, after--or maybe it was during--my little quiet time of just reading someone else's book, my writing mind went into over drive.

Okay, see, the voices never stop. Once I create the characters, they're always there. I live with them 24/7. It's like having annoying invisible friends. And since I use my house as a sort of model for where my MC lives, its also like having ghosts in my house, too. Vampires, werewolves, one leprechaun, and Sabrina who discovers she's a sibyl, and has to fight the nasty vampires, and has married one... oh, it's a big old mess. But I love the mess she's in.

So, a line--it was just one line--"I'm going to take an ear off if you don't stop moving." I wrote it out and then another line came and more and more. My characters were all here doing their thing.

It was an OMG moment. I had the first line to the sixth novel "Vampire Requiem". I'd been making notes, writing out some scenes. Thinking about it for the past month. Yep. On December 1st I had begun writing out notes on a document and have been adding to them as I had them.

This past week or so, I've gotten through both books #4 and #5. I believe #5 was done some time this month as my WIP, and finally I've gone through it once again. This one took me a number of months. I remember getting the same sort of lines and dialogue last year and had to write them down saying "No. I'm busy and can't write this right now." But the lines kept on coming. Just like they are here. The plot is evasive, but it will come. It's almost like I have to follow Sabrina around and see what's going on, moment by moment, before I see where this is going.

I'm currently awaiting a third book to be released. Actually I'm waiting for the edits to reach me. My frustration over this has gotten to me. Fans are awaiting this next book. If I don't get it out soon, eventually people won't care. Or will they?

Anyway, the next ones will not take quite this long, I'll make sure of it.

Working It

Last year I wrote my fourth novel in about 3 months time. It was relatively the easiest book to write, start to finish, that I've done in a while. But just because I got it down doesn't mean it's all good. I would say that I went through it possibly 4 times now. And now am working on the last few chapters doing some major tweaking, and trying to fill out some glossed over sections that need scene and dialogue and whatnot.

I'm in favor of the layered approach in my writing. Adding depth to the scenes is one of my favorite things to do. I add details that I didn't have time to work in at the time of writing it. So, when I'm faced with a scene that needs this sort of attention, I let it brew inside my head, asking how can I really pull this from a basic scene to something that holds more emotion, more details, and hopefully correct areas that aren't cohesive.

I woke up with one scene in my head and knew what was missing from it, and began working it in. I have a few of these, especially in the end.

My fourth book is called Vampire Caprice, and it will be slightly different from the previous in that I'm going to be going into other character's heads, like Tremayne, Vasyl, and  Bill Gannon. Reason being is that I felt we needed to get to know these guys a little better. Plus, I hope that it helps the story line in that it will have more depth, and emotion.

Creating my characters, like any writer knows, is a work of love. You have to know them like you know yourself, inside and out, know what makes them tick, even if you never put it down, or if you do, you'd better have a good understanding of it all.

I'm also placing sub-headings on each chapter, this way it will give the reader a little heads up as to what's going on, as they'll be reading along in Sabrina's head (and first person), and suddenly we get to a different character and now in 3rd person. It's different for me, and was a challenge to write, but I loved the challenge it presented for me.

In the weeks ahead I'll have to stop my work on the fourth book and work on edits for the third book (yay), which I'm expecting soon from my publisher. That book is on track for publication in January 2013.

So excited about my thrid book, and all the ones after. I've just finished the first draft of the 5th book, and have been making notes for the 6th. These characters simply live inside my head, and I follow them with a pen (or computer), and write it all down.

Announcement: 3rd Book~January Release

Funny how just posting that I know when my release for next book on facebook got gobs of people coming out of the woodwork to either LIKE, or make a comment, like "can't wait", that sort of thing  happens. There's people there that I didn't know even stopped in to see what I'm doing. People I have not even gone to visit in ages! But I guess it's probably on Page Feed, which is a great way to see what everyone's up to, so maybe that's how everyone knows about it. I think.

So, yep. My publisher told me the first edits are finished (thank goddess!), and second edits will take much less time (yes, because the first ones took MONTHS), and my book is first in line in the queue for publication. (YAY!!!!)

I'm relieved to know this because I sort of feel like they forgot about me or something. But also, I know that these things take time, and sometimes other things get in the way, or make things difficult, like--oh, I don't know--a storm that puts everyone under the ocean. Well, not really effecting my publisher so much, since they're in Mass., but I figure other stuff can happen to hold things up. Plus I'm not their only author.

And I do have a lot of respect for getting a book out there, ready to be printed as well as placed into places for ebook sales, because I see what the Indies have to do in order to get it done themselves. But the editing has got to be tedious and time consuming. God knows I've got grammar issues and other stuff that makes my writing in need of editing.

But tonight I'm happy to know that my book is actually going to have a launch. Now, if only my publisher will find the ellusive wonderful cover. He told me that he's found some but weren't quite good enough.

So, that's the news. I hope next time I post it will be with a cover photo and closer to when it will be out.