It's Christmas Eve today, and I'm now living in a hotel. Don't worry, it is temporary. Unfortunate, but temporary. How did I end up in this situation? The little substation that powers our grid flooded with water and blew, so now 60 houses have no power for the holidays. Yes, 60 houses filled with young families, many of them with children. I am grateful that I do not have to pay for this room that I type this from now, or that the rest of the families living here do not either, but my, what a shitty first Christmas.
It all started when my husband's pay was screwed up. Money was tight and I started to look for a job. I couldn't even afford decorations for the holidays. Then he didn't get the time off to see our families for Christmas because someone didn't send him, and the rest of dayshift, the email they needed. Things started to look up when I got my job at the bowling alley. After New Years things wouldn't be so tight financially because I was now helping out, but then yesterday morning there was no electricity. My husband's alarm didn't go off, and he ended up late to work along with the rest of the guys who live down the street from us. With no power, there was no heat. We spent the night huddled under piles of blankets trying to sleep. It was warmer outside than it was in our house.
This morning my husband called me from work to tell me that the inn on base was handing out free rooms, and here I am after wonderful help from a couple young ladies at the counter. At first I thought I was screwed, there was no room for us, but then they worked to find a place for me and my sweetie. I really couldn't appreciate them more.
The bad news is that they don't know when the power will be fixed. Rumor says it may only be a couple days to a week. Poor kids. I wish I could do something to make Christmas better for them and their families. At least they have a warm roof over their heads for the holidays.
Merry Christmas
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
What I Have Discovered About Writing Fantasy
This week, I am not going to bitch about how poor I am. Instead, I am going to talk about my nerdy little passion: writing fantasy.
I don't just write, as I have said many, many times. No, I write fantasy. I'm the person who dreams of places with weird names and weird species, and puts them down on paper. I watch as Microsoft Word freaks out with its little red and green squiggly lines as I try to type in words that its software brain cannot comprehend. (I have since become pro at ignoring the little buggers unless it is a true spelling crisis.)
Despite the frustration of trying to get my computer to respond to what I want, the truth is that I do not follow "typical" fantasy conventions as I have found out so frequently when my work on Book Country is reviewed. I have discovered that my work can be awfully polarizing, with people loving the wit and character interaction, and others spitting upon it for its lack of Tolkienesque details. When I set out to work on my book seriously sometime during my freshman year in college, I realized I wanted to write something that people would be able to read and connect to without being bogged down in unnecessary detail and background information like I had come across in fantasy so frequently.
To clarify, I do engage in world building to give people a setting, a place to escape to. The characters that are created must exist and interact in this world. You can't just throw in characters and not tell the audience what the laws, rule, or customs are. (Actually, don't tell. Show. But thats for an entirely different blog entry.) My point is that I don't like to overdo it. The people who don't like my work prefer whole paragraphs where I describe in minute detail what the street the character is standing on looks like, or the mountain top, or etc.
Too bad. If it isn't relevant, I don't put it in. I'm not going to describe the bar across the street unless my character goes into the bar at some point. For readers who want that kind of detail, read George RR Martin. The fact that I don't bog the reader down in unnecessary details is one thing those that like my work praise me on. I don't "let the genre rule me," as my creative writing professor told me once.
If there is one thing that I've learned from writing, period, is that people want action to happen with characters they can connect with. That is what I'm trying to achieve. I've come to the conclusion that if people can get that, then they might give it a try. With my work, I attract people who read just about anything from any genre, than those who read pretty much anything and everything fantasy. Those into "High Fantasy" really, really don't like my stuff. (I have yet to discover if this is a good or bad thing.)
For now I just keep chugging along in the hope that my audience will pop up and show itself. I've had from the "This is awesome!" to "Uh, no..." to those who missed every single important detail ever written down. For those of you who want to give my book a shot, here is the link: Hands of Ash.
I'll keep writing fantasy until my hands fall off. So all the naysayers can suck it, because I love being a such a geek.
I don't just write, as I have said many, many times. No, I write fantasy. I'm the person who dreams of places with weird names and weird species, and puts them down on paper. I watch as Microsoft Word freaks out with its little red and green squiggly lines as I try to type in words that its software brain cannot comprehend. (I have since become pro at ignoring the little buggers unless it is a true spelling crisis.)
Despite the frustration of trying to get my computer to respond to what I want, the truth is that I do not follow "typical" fantasy conventions as I have found out so frequently when my work on Book Country is reviewed. I have discovered that my work can be awfully polarizing, with people loving the wit and character interaction, and others spitting upon it for its lack of Tolkienesque details. When I set out to work on my book seriously sometime during my freshman year in college, I realized I wanted to write something that people would be able to read and connect to without being bogged down in unnecessary detail and background information like I had come across in fantasy so frequently.
To clarify, I do engage in world building to give people a setting, a place to escape to. The characters that are created must exist and interact in this world. You can't just throw in characters and not tell the audience what the laws, rule, or customs are. (Actually, don't tell. Show. But thats for an entirely different blog entry.) My point is that I don't like to overdo it. The people who don't like my work prefer whole paragraphs where I describe in minute detail what the street the character is standing on looks like, or the mountain top, or etc.
Too bad. If it isn't relevant, I don't put it in. I'm not going to describe the bar across the street unless my character goes into the bar at some point. For readers who want that kind of detail, read George RR Martin. The fact that I don't bog the reader down in unnecessary details is one thing those that like my work praise me on. I don't "let the genre rule me," as my creative writing professor told me once.
If there is one thing that I've learned from writing, period, is that people want action to happen with characters they can connect with. That is what I'm trying to achieve. I've come to the conclusion that if people can get that, then they might give it a try. With my work, I attract people who read just about anything from any genre, than those who read pretty much anything and everything fantasy. Those into "High Fantasy" really, really don't like my stuff. (I have yet to discover if this is a good or bad thing.)
For now I just keep chugging along in the hope that my audience will pop up and show itself. I've had from the "This is awesome!" to "Uh, no..." to those who missed every single important detail ever written down. For those of you who want to give my book a shot, here is the link: Hands of Ash.
I'll keep writing fantasy until my hands fall off. So all the naysayers can suck it, because I love being a such a geek.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Not So Very Merry Christmas
It has been a while since I've talked about anything but my writing. I feel that now is the perfect moment to introduce why I soon may not be working on said writing as much.
My husband and I are officially very, very poor. We have no savings, and all our money goes to bills and feeding ourselves. The reason why this has happened is a mystery to us. We have talked to the people that are in charge of the money that my husband makes, and they tell us that the government is making us pay them back money because they fixed how much he is supposed to make. It is a confusing and frustrating situation to be in when we have cut our spending significantly, but still it isn't enough. So now I am looking for a job. I actually might have to work two since all I've found is part time work. I hope I get the bowling alley job that I was interviewed for last Friday.
In other depressing news. I will not be seeing my family till December 28. No Christmas for me. Not even here. We can't afford to even make our own decorations.
Hope is hard to come by these days.
Friday, November 18, 2011
An Observation of Character
I've been cranking out the words lately, and I realized something about the characters that I create. Most of them are female, young, and don't like to follow the rules that society has set for them. They say that you put yourself in your writing, but I wonder if there might be an element of wishful thinking. They all do something that involves an element of bravery (or stupidity, depending on your perspective).
First there is my pride and joy, Melody. She isn't the best fighter, and probably not the smartest person to ever walk the earth, but she's got spunk. She wants nothing more than to be accepted for who she is regardless of gender or position, yet has a habit of inserting herself into other people's business. She's the main character of my novel Hands of Ash.
Then there is Tao. She's not the most pleasant person on the planet. Her cynical attitude and issues with the religious institution she's stuck working for make her difficult to deal with. She smokes like a chimney and will say a whole slew of unseemly things about your personality. She's rude and unseemly, yet is quickly turning into a fan favorite. Read her story here: Principium. She's also a character in my novel Hands of Ash.
The newest female protagonist to join my growing list is Scarlet the bandit. She came around as I was writing a story for a contest. The theme was to write a story from a villain's perspective. I decided to pick a female and go satirical. What I got can be read here: Why I Ain't No Hero. She's lewd and manipulative. Scarlet is perhaps the most masculine of my first two characters, and that's saying something.
In my current work I have a young woman named Mariann. Mariann is perhaps the meekest and most effeminate of my ladies. She keeps her head down and goes with the flow, but she wants out of the life she's been stuck with. Unlike Melody, Tao, and Scarlet, she's subtle. This was surprisingly easy to write for me even though my previous ladies usually have an element of loudness to them. Of course, this story is intended to be a tragedy, a sobering genre to begin with. I'll post a link for "Papers to Paradise" when I get it finished.
Not all my protagonists are female. There is Adamar. I have written one story about him, and have a second one in progress. (I actually didn't like the second one I wrote, so I'm rewriting it.) Unlike my ladies, he's quite and perhaps more mature. He also is more cerebral than the girls, but not the scholarly type. To say he's a worrier is not an overstatement. He spends most of his time trying to figure out what it means to be a Warrior, and what is the purpose of war. Yeah, he's a tad on the deep side. His first story is here: Red Autumn.
I had started a story for Cyn Fang, yet it has gone nowhere beyond a couple hundred words. Like Adamar, he's on the quiet side. He's also calculating. I don't know what this says about my view of women and men, but for all those who like to psychoanalyze everything, there it is.
I think I've said enough about my characters. I'll let you be the judge.
Note: I don't know if the site I've linked the stories from will let nonmembers read more than one if linked to it like I have. Let m know if you have problems for those who are interested.
First there is my pride and joy, Melody. She isn't the best fighter, and probably not the smartest person to ever walk the earth, but she's got spunk. She wants nothing more than to be accepted for who she is regardless of gender or position, yet has a habit of inserting herself into other people's business. She's the main character of my novel Hands of Ash.
Then there is Tao. She's not the most pleasant person on the planet. Her cynical attitude and issues with the religious institution she's stuck working for make her difficult to deal with. She smokes like a chimney and will say a whole slew of unseemly things about your personality. She's rude and unseemly, yet is quickly turning into a fan favorite. Read her story here: Principium. She's also a character in my novel Hands of Ash.
The newest female protagonist to join my growing list is Scarlet the bandit. She came around as I was writing a story for a contest. The theme was to write a story from a villain's perspective. I decided to pick a female and go satirical. What I got can be read here: Why I Ain't No Hero. She's lewd and manipulative. Scarlet is perhaps the most masculine of my first two characters, and that's saying something.
In my current work I have a young woman named Mariann. Mariann is perhaps the meekest and most effeminate of my ladies. She keeps her head down and goes with the flow, but she wants out of the life she's been stuck with. Unlike Melody, Tao, and Scarlet, she's subtle. This was surprisingly easy to write for me even though my previous ladies usually have an element of loudness to them. Of course, this story is intended to be a tragedy, a sobering genre to begin with. I'll post a link for "Papers to Paradise" when I get it finished.
Not all my protagonists are female. There is Adamar. I have written one story about him, and have a second one in progress. (I actually didn't like the second one I wrote, so I'm rewriting it.) Unlike my ladies, he's quite and perhaps more mature. He also is more cerebral than the girls, but not the scholarly type. To say he's a worrier is not an overstatement. He spends most of his time trying to figure out what it means to be a Warrior, and what is the purpose of war. Yeah, he's a tad on the deep side. His first story is here: Red Autumn.
I had started a story for Cyn Fang, yet it has gone nowhere beyond a couple hundred words. Like Adamar, he's on the quiet side. He's also calculating. I don't know what this says about my view of women and men, but for all those who like to psychoanalyze everything, there it is.
I think I've said enough about my characters. I'll let you be the judge.
Note: I don't know if the site I've linked the stories from will let nonmembers read more than one if linked to it like I have. Let m know if you have problems for those who are interested.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Love I Give To Chapter 9
Ah, Chapter 9. You are the biggest headache of my life right now.
I know my overly dramatic statement might seem like hyperbole, but in all honesty, I think my finances are easier at this point. I have a couple longer chapters to revise, yet none are quite so depressing as 9. There is death, weeping, and all the horrible sentences I wrote when I was putting converting it to a digital medium. You see, 9 is the chapter where I learned my lesson that you should never be bored with what you write, or bored while you write. Then, when you go back and revise you get this...
I know my overly dramatic statement might seem like hyperbole, but in all honesty, I think my finances are easier at this point. I have a couple longer chapters to revise, yet none are quite so depressing as 9. There is death, weeping, and all the horrible sentences I wrote when I was putting converting it to a digital medium. You see, 9 is the chapter where I learned my lesson that you should never be bored with what you write, or bored while you write. Then, when you go back and revise you get this...
I know. Isn't it such a lovely mess, but it doesn't end there. I have plenty more where that came from.
Yes, those are post-it notes. I had to come up with something to put entire chapter rewrites on since I print double sided. (Although, the first copy I made of the revision I flubbed and printed single side. 25 pages wasted when I could have cut that in half. Sorry, trees.)
I know that some of you reading this are saying that is how they should look after a good, hard editing session. A writer should cut out the sentences and words that are unneeded. Dialogue and descriptions that aren't up to par should be rewritten or chucked in the garbage can to be taken away with the refuse, but here is the thing that shouldn't happen. An editing session on a chapter shouldn't take two weeks. Yes, folks. Two whole weeks, maybe even longer.
You see, when writing this initially, I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to get it done so bad that I wrote a ton of whitewash boring sentences. There was no flavor, no spice, no love to them. Then I had to fix them. The reason it took so long, is that when I found myself feeling tired, I put it aside. I did not want 9 to have no flavor like it did before. I wanted it to be engaging. I wanted it to be filled with the love of the craft.
I don't know if I have succeeded at this point. I still have one more revision to do on it before I repost it up at my sources. Then it will be allowed to join the pile.
Above is the pile of folders for the Prologue through chapter 8. They wait patiently for me to put 9 through 14 with them, maybe even 15 since I'm almost done. I guess I will just have to take up the NaNoWriMo call and finish my novel before the end of November. (Thanks for making me feel guilty, Typewriter Mike.) Whether I get there or not depends on how persistent I am...
... and how good Skyrim is.
If you know me, text me, email me, Facebook me, or kick me and tell me to get my ass going. I know my husband isn't going to be the one to light the fire under my ass.
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