Going Under

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Nov
6

As I mentioned in a previous entry, much of my writing process takes place in my head, usually when I’m trapped in a boring place I don’t want to be (like the car) and most of the “big” scenes of the book tend to work themselves out there long before I ever get them written down.

I should be grateful that I’m making progress on my newest book at all, though. Every other paragraph, it seems, I have to stop and plot out some part of the subsequent novels before I can move forward. I have to be my own fact-checker, too, and I’m constantly having to pull out my copy of Sword of the Guardian and re-read what I’d previously written there before I commit to the sentence I’ve just typed out. I’m not very good at the whole rough draft – revise – revise – revise method. Which is not to say that I don’t do a TON of revision after I’ve finished a manuscript, it’s just that my perfectionist side won’t allow my creative side to keep going until I’ve ensured that the preceding sentences are satisfactory. The joys of being Gemini, I suppose. By the time I do write the final sentence, most of the novel is already pretty much at a second-to-third revision stage.

For this reason, as much as I appreciate Nanowrimo for its motivation to squeeze in some time for writing every single day, I doubt I’ll get the full 50K words written this month. I feel lucky to get 1000 words written in a day, and that’s assuming I’ve had many hours to sit and focus solely on Ithyria.

Anyway, the purpose of this entry was to mention that a couple days ago I had one of those breakthrough moments while I was driving home from work and listening to my Prayer of the Handmaiden playlist (I promise, I really will write up a separate blog about it sometime soon.) One of the songs that I was beginning to regret having put on the list, because its mood and sound doesn’t really fit with the others, started playing. Usually I hit the skip button, but I was merging in traffic and didn’t want to distract myself by fiddling with the stereo. And a couple bars into the song I got hit with a very vivid mental picture of PotH’s climactic scene – resolving quite a few of the logistic issues I’d been struggling with, and doing so with such simplicity and beauty that I was smacking my forehead for not having thought of it before.

Anyway, I want to avoid spoilers in my blog as much as possible, so I won’t go into a description of what happened, but I’ll tell you what the song was: Evanescence’s “Going Under.” Enjoy!

Getting to Know You

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Nov
4

So here we are, just a few days into Nanowrimo.  I’m working on the fifth chapter right now, in which Kadrian goes through the ceremony to become shaa’din. I’ve been looking forward to writing this part because it’s one of the first “big” scenes of the novel, and I’m hoping it translates itself to the written word as magically and sensually as it plays out in my mind. 

I do feel like I’m starting to get more attached to these characters, which is a good thing.  When I started writing SotG, Talon and Shasta were fully formed personalities in my head before I ever started writing.  It’s taken a little longer for me to get to know Erinda and Kade.  I think maybe it’s because the two of them are both really private people, in their own ways, and even I couldn’t fully suss either of them out at first, even when writing from inside their heads.  I’m getting there, though.  It feels almost like they’re slowly opening up to me, like I hope they will to readers – they’ve both started showing me sides of themselves that I had no idea I would be writing about.  Erinda’s passion for horses, for example, showed up out of the blue and I had to spend a good amount of time researching all manner of horse-related details in order to share her bits of the story. I know next to nothing about horses.  They’ve never really been my thing.  Yet there Erinda was, demanding I write them in for her, and who am I to disobey?

And they’ve also completely startled me by practically switching the personalities I’d planned for them.  I’d thought Kade was going to be tougher, more forthright and confident, perhaps with some control issues, while Erinda was going to be much more emotionally fragile and sensitive.  Instead, Kade’s turning out to be the fragile one, very gentle and accommodating in most respects, and Erinda’s a downright spitfire, surprising me sentence after sentence with her attitude and tenacity, particularly when I know how turbulent and tired her emotional state is.  Neither character is remotely as butch as Talon was in the first book (I don’t even know if it’s possible to get much butcher than a woman everyone believes is a man?) but neither are they as femme as Shasta.  They’ve become a much more middle-ground set of characters, still very complex and faceted but far less, I don’t know… stereotypical, I guess.

I’m also finally really starting to feel the angst, especially on Erinda’s side, that I was hoping would be there.  I’ve written a good chunk of angst thus far but it hasn’t yet fully grabbed me.  I don’t think I’ve entirely grasped yet the depth of emotional impact to these women, being separated from one another by duty and faith. But I don’t want to let it overshadow the other equally important emotional nuances of the story, either.

I’m realizing this book is really about a love triangle, with the Goddess Ithyris as the sort of third wheel. Thinking of her as a third wheel isn’t even giving her enough credit, really. Hard enough to choose between two women you love deeply… even harder when one of those women is the Goddess you were raised to worship and serve. Meanwhile, the other, mortal woman fits you like a puzzle piece, like you were born to spend your life interlocked with her, and surely that can’t be an accident, so seriously, WTF?  :P

Anyway, I’m really enjoying the journey with them thus far.  I’ve been listening to theme songs for each of them, a sort of personal anthem that really describes the state of their individual souls throughout the novel, and invariably when I listen to either one I’m given some spark of new detail I didn’t have before.  Will probably share more about those a little later… :)

Writing with Relish

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Nov
2

This morning, as I dragged my very sleepy, grumpy self out of bed, groggily dressed in work clothes and sensible pumps, took out my braces, brushed my teeth, kissed my wife, made coffee, and climbed into the car for my hour-long commute into work, I found myself wondering how on earth other people manage it. I know there are folks out there who can expertly balance a full-time job, a marriage, kids, and still have time to churn out multiple awesome books in a single year.

But I have to admit, when I’m sitting in my office staring at a computer screen that doesn’t contain the story I’d much rather be working on, I am indescribably envious of those who have partners or spouses to pay the mortgage, so that they can sit and write all day – surf the net for inspiration, read other writing blogs, maybe even travel to various writing conferences and conventions and signings and the like – but most importantly and satisfyingly, WRITE. When you’re the primary breadwinner in your household you have to squeeze writing in, often at the expense of those precious few hours you have to spend with your family at the end of the day. When you’re a chronic insomniac who is in a perpetual state of tiredness throughout the week, it’s even tougher. When you’ve got a story burning a hole in your brain in the meantime, it’s far too easy to slide into a funk of ingratitude and dissatisfaction with one’s life.

I despise such funks, especially since I’m well aware of how very, very fortunate I am. I have a great life – a good job, a nice house, an absolutely amazingly wonderful partner. If being sleepy and not having much time to write are really the biggest things I am able to complain about, then I have a pretty charmed life. And though it may sometimes be hard to remember that early in the morning, when it’s still dark by the time I hit the road, and my coffee’s not quite strong enough, and I’m facing the prospect of another whole day in the office instead of curled up with my little netbook, I still need to take a step back from my disgruntled frame of mind and remind myself how great my life really is. Instead of grumping over how little time I have to write, I need to be concentrating on treasuring every last second of the writing-time I do get to squeeze in… and relishing those moments when they come along.

Storytelling is not a race. I will get this story out a piece at a time, as it comes, and it will be all the better for the anticipation that builds when I’m not able to work on it as I’d like.

In the meantime, while returning work emails, I’ll just crank up my Prayer of the Handmaiden inspirational playlist… which is itself a post for another day. :)