Awakening?

For the first time in months (a lot of months…more than the 3 since March) my thoughts have gone to my writing. More specifically the story that faced the chopping block of 13,000-ish words. The characters have begun (I hope) to prowl through my mind and as have scenes. Including one so cliché my own eyes rolled but I’m not complaining too loud. It’s these characters. Not some story idea I use as distraction from finishing the book (which happened last time and already I forgot the “brilliant” plot I had thought up) but this story.

I’m woozy at the thought. I hope this means that I will open the Word file and do more than read to update my brain on the story but that I will actually contribute to the story…this story.

Oh how I hope…

Writing on the Razor

My new heroine scares me a bit. She’s tough. Really tough. She’s violent. Very violent. But she scares me. I wonder about how I’ll be able to redeem her in the end. Right now she has the hero as a captive and she’s hurting him. In a bad way. Torture actually. She’s that…dark.

I wonder what the hero will see in her to make him love her. Hard to do that when she’s torturing his ass because she’s sure as hell not letting him see her vulnerable side. She scares me.

That’s good though. I like writing scared. It means I’m doing my job because if I’m scared perhaps the reader will be and will also be wondering all the same things about her such as “Holy shit…she just stabbed the hero! This is so not going to end well.”

And yes…she did stab him. :S This is just not heroine behaviour

Like I said…she scares me.

A Little H20

Some days you get surprised. Yesterday I was surprised.

Zodiac Series: Water has just been released in ebook format at Liquid Silver Books and contains The Midnight Hour from the Scorpio anthology. Oh I forgot this giddy sensation. To see your name on the cover. And now, a week before my birthday *squees in delight* And oh how I adored writing Mattie & Max’s story.

I feel like a writer again. Oh heaven.

The Magic of Words

Grounded by another migraine yesterday (mutter mutter) I took my credit card off to Ellora’s Cave where I bought a nice handful of e-books by Joey Hill.

A nice way to pass the day. So much so that when I woke up early to run some errands and have lunch with my mom, I said “Y’know, I’m just going to read today.” Hung up and delved into book four of her Nature of Desire series.

And.

Oh.

My.

God.

I wept. I wept like a baby more than once throughout this book. Oh it was heart breaking. I still have book five to go but man alive, I love writing like this. Writing that will grab you by the heart and squeeze and squeeze until you’re gasping for breath, wiping your nose with your wrist (sexy) because to move would disrupt it all.

Have I forgotten why I like writing? -frowns- Perhaps. As I told Kate Lang, “We overanalyze our writing so much. Do we have the right amount of conflict? What about tension? Oh god…how’s my point of view. God, we need to stop doing that and just…write.”

But as I closed the pdf and sighed with satisfaction even as emotions raced through my body, all I could think was “Yeah. Yeah.” That’s what it’s all about.

Now to read book five then perhaps open up my own word file.

The Great Delete

I opened the Word file to refresh my brain. I hadn’t worked on the story in awhile and that’s a good way to drop the plot. So, I began to read. And I enjoyed myself until I reached chapter four. The more I read the  more an unsettling feeling came over me.

I could so delete this.

In fact…I believe I need to.

Chapter Four is 20 pages.

Chapter Five also necessary to being deleted is currently at 19 pages.

Now I don’t claim to be great at math but 39 pages to go is leaving me a bit breathless. That’s 12, 377 words. Gone. Out of 26, 382. HALF of what I’ve written. I feel a little light-headed.

Why am I deleting almost 13k words? Because they don’t move the story forward. In fact I think those 13k words are responsible for this book grinding to a halt because of the lack of forward motion. I knew one scene had to go in Chapter Five as it was so stupid it make my gag reflexes kick in but to discover half my written wordage…gak.

But if the words aren’t working. If the story isn’t flowing. Then something has to change. On the plus side…I’ve realized what scene I need to write next. Duh. How obvious.

Ah writing. How fun is this job.