You've Got the Love?

“You’ve got the love I need to see me through. When food is gone you ARE my daily need.”  Lyric from “You’ve Got the Love” by Florence+ the Machine, album Lungs.  (my new fav band, the whole album is all about love)

It’s words like those that writers have sprinkled together to transcend love through all time.  I may be insecure about my verbs, pace or even hook but there is one thing I do have right, the passion between my main characters.

I’m not one of those people who have had a few fantastical experiences and glorify the passion in my works based in a world of limited knowledge.  I have loved, lost, lusted, craved, dumped, despised and desired.  If it is a term associated with love I have experienced it to the fullest. 

From the highs:  I have been madly crazy in love, with more than one:  the electricity from a brief graze, the dizzy swirl of their scent,  or the deathly longing when they are not at you side.  It’s a familiarity as strong as your own soul in a world where the yearning is enough to sustain life.  And when a candle burns itself at both ends… well we know what happens.

To the lows:  When the light goes out what do you have?  A dark lonely place.  There you feel your way around until your hands identify something familiar.  Something solid you can hold onto.  And if you’re lucky, you scrap together the pieces around and put yourself back together.  You’re never really whole.  There are the empty parts, always empty parts, panging a memory from the dark, a piece of the black you just can’t let go.

For me, I dive into the files of life a pull out a single moment in time and use it for fuel to the fire.  If I can’t seem to draw from time what I need I use the tool of music to call upon my muse (whoever he might have been.)  Music sets the soul free and without it I’m lost.

We all have our sacred rituals for calling upon Aphrodite.  What’s yours? 

Or tell me your favorite pledge of love.

Blog Vacation - Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I'll be on a blog vacation for the next couple of days.  I hope you have a great holiday.

Things I Like to Abuse

I love using: commas, that, well, so, had and other annoying useless bits.

So I love commas, so much so, that well, my manuscript is bleeding to death from the tiny slashes I put, well in my sentences.  I also, love useless words like that.  That, the word that is, explains everything.  I say “that” and you know what I’m talking about, right?  Apparently I love abusing other words like: well, so, had, seems, appeared, like and other fillers.

Would someone please free me from tyranny of useless words?

What do I do?  I write with them.  I have too.  But afterwards I do a find and search attack.  Like an ax welding barbarian I slice and dice (or maybe like a sous-chef.)    Anyway, that’s my hunk of nothing for today.  You got anything?

When Squirrel's Go Fishing

It ain’t pretty let me tell you.  The carnage is unreal.  I’ve been hacking away at my WIP and I have since taken chapter 2 and buried it.  May chapter 1 & 2 RIP.  Can we have a moment in silence?  (Thank you Diana for chunking a rock at my head because I would not have axed them otherwise.) 

Then I looked at chapter 3, then 4, 5, 6 and I stopped.  Where is my hook?  I wanted to trash the whole story and start over.   There were bits of shinny objects posing as hooks all the way to chapter 7 but the hook came in chapter 7.  It was more like shooting fish in a barrel than a hook but it’s a way to catch a fish all the same.

Surely I don’t have 113K words of nothing, right?  (Yes, for goodness sake I know that is way too many words for a YA novel, I’ve got a lot of whittling.  BTW, I can’t find a clear word range for YA adult.  I’ve gotten anywhere from 40K to 85K.  Can someone narrow it better for me?)  So this little squirrel went back to square one.   Why am I having such a hard time with hooking so early? *giggles* Wendy just did a hooky piece and I feel like Bevis and Butthead, “Hehe Hehe, she said hooking.”   I find that I am trying to build my characters and their relationships to each other. I have a hard time just starting a story without you knowing a little bit about the characters.   Let’s face facts.  We all want a big fat juicy worm, figuratively speaking, on a hook not a background story.  

So I rewrote my synopsis.  This also brought my attention to what I like to call pot holes or the parts of the story that jar the reader, not a good thing.  I wrote through them on the first draft and having them there creates a lack of credibility or stability.   In rewriting my synopsis from where the story actually begins I found I had to create a new scene.  My hook if you will has spiraled a whole lot of other new scenes that have started to fill in the pot holes.  Overall I feel my story getting tighter and I’m getting excited.   I don’t dread the work ahead but I am impatient for a final product.   Finishing a book is only the beginning.  Sigh.

Okay, off to bait my hook and see if I can’t catch me a barracuda, aka agent. 

Flashy Fiction Friday

It is almost 11pm here but still Friday.  So if you have not read my "Get Jacked on the Crack" post here is another Flashy Fiction shout out.

It's a sexy little blog where they give you phrases, quotes, picture prompts, whatever and you create the delicious little goodies to finish if off. (Check out their 411 before you post.)

This week I want to give a props to Scattercat.   Check out Scattercat's flashy fiction piece on the Three Word Prompt:  Dressing Cranberries Drunk.  (note Scattercat did not use the exact words but forms of them)  Good stuff peeps.

I posted a few this week but here is my favorite.  (I am passionate about native american indians.)
Tuesday Prompt

Neshwa Petweowas

Then there were two.
Their coats glistened from the rich summer bounty but not for long. Their chances to outlast the white winter were slim even with the blood of the ne-noth'tu. If they did defeat the harsh cold then maybe just maybe they could rebuild the pack. It was the work of the ka-tet that they found each other before the first snow fall. The last of their kind depended upon it.

And even in the most earnest of their fights the white snowy cold claimed their souls and put an end to the Shawnee Nation.

Shawnee Translation:
Neshwa Petweowas – Two Wolves
ne-noth'tu – warrior
ka-tet - fate or “Good Spirit”

Get Real?

So I’m on the couch with Hubby.  We’re being forced to watch Sponge Bob by our captors; we will call them Offspring 1 and Offspring 2 (though I will not refer to them again in the post?)  Anyway, Hubby says to me, “Aren’t they under water?   Sooo, how can they have fire?  It’s just not realistic.”

Yes, I busted out laughing and followed up with, “Seriously we’re talking about a talking sponge that works as a fry cook and lives in a pineapple next door to a talking squid and starfish and you have a problem with the fire being realistic.”  More laughter followed to his dismay.   

Perturbed Hubby says, “You know what I mean.”  (No my husband’s name is not Hubby but work with me here)

Though I kind of knew what he meant, I took a moment longer to laugh at him.  So yesterday, I find myself having the same conversation with my MC, the love interest, not my POV MC.  He can do “special stuff” and I told him I want him to do his “special stuff” more often (ok, this is sounding dirty so let me clarify).  I got mad and Nick, my MC love interest, because he has abilities and he doesn’t use them enough.    Here’s the conversation:

Me: “Dude, you can do some really cool stuff.  DO you think you could use it more often in day to day life?”

Nick: “Why?”

“Because it’s cool.”

“Eh.”

“Eh?  What do you mean you don’t like your powers?  Because now’s the time to bring it up, not six months from now when I querying agents.”

“No I like them, really like them but it seems corny when I use them.”  Nick whines.  (Let me tell you Nick never whines, so I have to listen.)   “It just doesn’t seem real.”

And then it hit me.  I get my husband’s point even better.  My YA novel has characters with special abilities, and sometimes I’m not sure how realistic they seem, considering they are made up people in my head with abilities that are not real.  You know where I’m going here. 

How do you know if your supernatural/paranormal characters sound cool on paper or cheesy?  I’ve gotta get my piece revised at least once and get it to a beta reader.  Maybe by the weekend I will have a couple of chapters cleaned up enough to feel comfortable about passing it off. 

Okay people, I’m out of here.  I have a busy next couple of days and a hungry kids and washing machine I need to feed so if I don’t get back quick enough, I apologize in advance.

Don't you hate it when...

…the car of the roller coaster you're riding comes flying off the rails and lands in the bushes.  So you get out of the coaster car to go complain to management and you end up having to go through the side bushes, down a Chicago back alley where you almost get mugged and through an office building where a seminar is in progress and out front to the Japanese restaurant where it all started.  And you realize, hey this isn't the same Japanese restaurant I got on this roller coaster, it's one of those chains.  Doh, I hate it when that happens!

If you're scratching your head well join the club.  This was the wacked out dream I had this morning.  It did get me to thinking; dreams are the subconscious manifestations of our worries.  (When they’re not about sparkly vampires and multimillion dollar books deals.)

At first I thought it was cool because I have been dreaming a lot more lately until I realized that dreaming means you're not getting a deep enough sleep. So, what did my dream symbolize?

One, the roller coaster, besides maybe Diane's blog is creeping into my subconscious...eh, maybe, or I am  excited, obsessively excited with revising my WIP.  Like fixing all those pot holes I knew were there but kept trying to pretend they weren't.  The roller coaster symbolizes the wild ride I’m on while sometimes it can be exciting and fun it can also be scary.  (I just spelled scary with two r’s.  Are you sure Mr. Red Squiggle?  I thought…ok, whatever.)

Annnd we’re back.  Two, the dark Chicago alley (I don’t know why Chicago, I live in California and was born and raised in Tennessee.  Go figure.) represents the inner demon of self-doubt.  The doubt that constantly questions my ability, skill and reminds me that I am still just a squirrel, hanging out with a bunch of lions being a poser.  NOTE:  I made it through the back alley of my dream without getting mugged so maybe that is a good sign?

Three, the seminar I interrupted when I took a short cut from the back alley to the front street represents my burning desire to mingle with all the other lions, agents and what not in the business so I can pick some brains.  (not in the zombie sense)  And/Or it represents my equally strong desire to take a few writing classes.  Both I plan to do as soon as I find something in my neck of the woods (San Diego).

And lastly, the Japanese restaurant, besides being the secret entrance to all the really cool roller coaster rides, it represents my huge craving for sushi!  Man I haven’t had sushi in like ten days, I think I’m going into withdrawal.  Okay, you want something more philosophical right?  How about I feel lost, like I’m in a foreign country, when it comes to my writing.  .  .  .Nah, I want sushi.

So now your turn, give me your best “Don’t you hate it when fill in blank?”  or Tell me about your wacky dream that you related back to your writing.  (Please no meadows.)

Somebody Call the Police!

It's a bloody mess over here!  Yesterday my hubby and children let mommy hide in her cave the entire day.  (Yes, they do love me.)  So I decided to print out Chapter 1 and edit.  Oh baby did I edit.  I hacked away at that thing until all that remained were bloody stumps (translation:  5700 words to 2500).  Then I tried to Frankenstein graft some of it back together and rearrange its parts until I made a pivotal decision, Chapter 1 must die.  I made a ceremonial sacrifice, a necessary evil to my WIP because let's be honest, the story really doesn't get started until Chapter 2 and no one wants to read 5700 words of fluff.

Now those words are not a complete waste.  There are a few key pieces that I need to weave in to Chapter 2, to help establish my MC (maybe 750 words of it).  The rest we will call...“character development” and file it away as a healthy exercise.

I am off to carve into Chapter 2.  Instead of going in with a machete, I plan to scale down to a butcher knife because we all know the beginning takes the most refinement.  You can’t carve Mt. Rushmore with a butter knife.

When you first started reworking your WIP what major changes did you make?

*snoopy dance*

Can't you just hear the Peanuts music in the back ground and the tapity tap of Snoopy's feet doing his happy dance?

No?  That's the way I thought I would feel but I am sitting here crying.  I can't even see the screen because the tears are so blurring.  It's freaking pathetic is what it is but I have to say....I finished.

I finished writing my 113K YA novel and I have the overwhelming sense of  pride and fear.  The last chapter was a complete pain in the keister and really rough, like ground in gravel rough after a motorcycle accident but it's done.

Okay, I just wanted to tell you guys.  The hubby is letting me sit in my cave and work today so now I'm going to print this 369 page puppy and start sculpting, scrapping and cutting.

Acorns of Life

When the acorns of life are thrown at you, you have two choices:  catch them or get wacked in the head by them.  (I guess a third, less practical choice would be to catch the acorns and nail the psycho squirrel who is chunking them at you.)  This week I caught a lot of acorns.  Life just got in the way of my writing and I did not have any time to dedicate to my WIP.   I drop the kids off at school at 8am and I have to pick them up at 12pm, my time is short and valuable.  Here is my plan.

What I am not doing today….

I am not Feeding my kids.

I am not feeding the washer and dryer any more.   (Even though I have plenty of dirty clothes for it to snack on.  I swear our laundry basket is like the cup that runneth over, it never ends!)

I am not going to lunch with my friends.

I am not answering the phone.

I am not reading my emails.

I am not reading any blogs, until after noon.  I hope.

I am not reading any blog comments (especially my own, you peeps are da bomb but not ‘til noon)

I am not going to boxing class today.  (That really bums me but I went to the gym every day since Saturday, I need a break plus I visited my evil trainer twice this week so he could beat me to a pile of pulp.)

What I am doing today…

Ok fine, I’ll feed the kids but this is the last time.

I am finishing my WIP.  

I am finishing my WIP.    

I am finishing my WIP.  

I am finishing my WIP.  

Yes, I am willing it so.  Four hours should plenty of time to write the last 2000 words right?  Oh, I don’t know I’m nervous.  Distractions happen.

Get Jacked on the Crack!

I’ve found my new crack, Flashy Fiction!  If you’re not using then something is wrong.  It is a fabulous no pressure blog that gives you daily cues; via a quote, statement or picture.  You, fancy writer nobody, takes that daily cue and runs with it.  Like your ass is on fire runs with it and let me tell you it is the best high you can get.

Ok, it's kind of like this.  You walk in a room…”Hi my name is Girl with One Eye.”  Meekly take your seat on the aluminum metal folding chair.  Group says, “Hi Girl, welcome.”  They hand you a prompt.  You hold it, waiting for a veteran to take the stage first, you watch their performance.  You slink down in your chair and go, oh crap, what have I gotten myself into?   Your turn…

My first time…ok

Second time…Better.

Third time…HOME RUN!

(DISCLAIMER #1: The above is an opinion of how I felt afterwards and in no way implies I expect you to agree.)

It gets you fired up and open and raw and just like you can freaking take on the world, like you’re high. (DISCLAIMER #2:  The previous statement is meant to be a metaphor and in no way implies the author is or has ever consumed an illegal substance.  You can’t prove a thing, I never inhaled.)

Thank you Wendy for introducing me.  (If you are not following Wendy’s blog you should, she is a funny witty gal who I should dedicate and entire post to but I would sound like some cyber stalking freak and she might have to put a cyber restraining order on me.  Even in the comments to her post she is witty and clever.  Ok, enough Wendy praise.)  Check out Wendy’s hilarious Flashy Fiction: Picture of two couples.

Here is what I wrote (for my home run piece, see DISCLAIMER #1):

It was the last place I wanted to be but the only place to make it happen. The hallowed ground made my blood quiver. The wind stayed at bay but I could taste the stale air around me, rotting wood, rusting metal, the last sacred place to rest. Overgrown with weeds and crumbled masonry told me blessings from the priests had long since past. It had to be enough, the dark was coming and so were they.

Numbly, I traced my finger over the circle of my pendant. I couldn’t feel the full force of my talisman’s power but the occasional flicker of static between my fingers told me I had hope. The sun began to hide behind the tree line, coward I thought. The shadows of the trees grew longer until eventually they became the dark. It wouldn’t be long now.

The shuffle in the woods told me they were close. I moved to the tiny bell tower, barricading myself in. It was the last night of the crescent moon just before it became new, it had to be enough. I wouldn’t make it another night out here alone. I had to wait and hope they could not smell me before I had a chance to perform the ritual.

First came the thuds, soft melodic. I can handle the thuds I told myself. Then a moan, one at first, soft occasional, I can handle one moan. It grew louder confirming it had caught scent of something alive. Shhh, I wanted to tell it. Be quiet please, I begged silently inside. My begging and praying was not enough, I heard a second then third now they were coming. Where was the moon? Surely it should be here by now?

I wrapped my arms around my legs and rocked. Tune them out; it’s just moaning nothing more. CRACK! I heard the first board break to my makeshift barrier. I rocked faster waiting for shot of silver to break night sky.

Maybe, I stood to my feet, there behind the clouds a glow. I pulled the dagger from my boot, the blade crooked back and forth to a sharp point. Patiently I waited for the cloud to pass and reveal my savior of light. The scrapping of claws to the wood below were not so patient. All I need it one ray from the moon and I’m free.

If I cut too soon it could bring them down on me faster. Wait. Wait. There, I gouged the dagger deep in my hand and raked it across my palm. I used the point to drip a single drop onto the medallion. The moon’s rays zeroed in on the ruins tied around my neck just as they crashed through the rotted door.

They were too late. I saw only the clouded white of their dead eyes before the rays of light enveloped me. The light recessed and I fell, into his arms. The emerald green of his eyes welcomed me back. Before I could even curl the rest of my smile the smother of his shoulder embraced me as wept for my safe return.

That’s it.  It opened me up better than Nyquil.

Hmm, I think I have my prologue for a third book. 

Want to get your daily crack?  Check out Flashy Fiction, you won’t be disappointed.

Am I normal?

I mean let’s be realistic, if I ask that on my FB page I’m opening myself up to a lot of sarcastic comments (I have the power of delete though).   The “normal” I’m referring to is what all writers go through, I hope.    So here’s a list of what I do and I need to know if you do it too?

Am I normal…

…to procrastinate finishing the last chapter of my book?  I am two thousand words away and I can’t find two seconds to finish.  My god man, “getter done!”

…because I’m totally freaking out/obsessing that my book is ending in the right place?  I have a potential series here so where do I stop?

…if I can visualize every character, except my main man?  I see every character in my book clearly, like a photograph, minus the love interest.  He’s a main character for god’s sakes, I can describe every detail of his face but when he stands in front of me, it’s like his face goes all fuzzy.  You know when you have a dream and you can’t quite see their facial features, that’s him.  (Maybe I should look at him through my peripheral like Whitley Strieber has you do in Communion?  OMG, my main man is an alien! *gasp*)

…to feel schizophrenic?  One minute I think my book is a genius masterpiece and the next it’s total crap?

…to feel excited about editing, revising and rewriting my book?  When I look back on the early chapters I see some really good stuff followed by a lot of immature writing.  There will be a lot of work here but the potential is exciting.

…to have another book on the side that I give a little love to?  Shhh, I don’t want my main book on this computer to find out that I am cheating on it.

These are just few things that drive me crazy and I need to know if you writers out there experience the same.  Are you normal?

One Lovely Blog Award

Thank you Mary from "Writer's Butt Does Not Apply to Me" for my lovely award.  Seriously, I've received the "One Lovely Blog Award."

I heart Chipmunk

I told Chipmunk (refer to previous post) about my blog.  Here is what she had to say:

I LOVE it, Squirrelly girl!  Your writing is maturing and it is so much fun to watch.  I love living vicariously through you! 

Love,

Chipmunk

I love you too Chipmunk!

Pet Peeves with Spell Check

Okay, when I am writing, spell check sometimes gets on my nerves.  It’s like an ex-boyfriend on facebook, you want to delete their ass but you hate to miss out on learning something miserable about his life.

So I will continue to tolerate the following because I need spell check, but I don’t like it:

5.  When I write in quotes, could you please not inform me that its an incomplete sentence?  It’s a conversation; people don’t talk in complete sentences.

4. Upgrade your damn dictionary already, I spelled it right, you have a limited capacity.  Kind of like the above mentioned “ex.”

3.  Seriously, where did you learn phonics?  I know I am a horrible speller but I’ve tried three different spellings and you still don’t know what the heck I’m trying to say.  It’s a word I know it is!

2. When did the powers that be combine the words can not?  I can not put them together.  I will not put them together (until I have to).  I hate them together and I refuse to put them together as one word (you didn’t ask me to put will not together).  So stop reminding me with the blue zig-zag already.

1.  Ain’t is a word, it ain’t proper English, its slang so stop oppressing it with the red zig-zag rick-rack underneath it.  You know, sometimes a country girl has just gotta be country and spell check just won’t let me be me.  Now gotta, that is not a word.  Finally we agree on something.

Pub her Tweets!

A writer of YA novels, Susan Adrian, has a contest on her website if you tweet, comment and post her info on your blog she is giving away some really cool YA novels with urban fantasy and paranormal themes.  Check it out, but before you leave her blog don't forget to read her  How Not to Act post. Good stuff.

What makes you qualified?

After being intimidated by other blogger’s/writer’s/author’s book shelves (especially the shame I felt for reading all the twilight books and LOVING them all  - thank you Megan for your twilight article), credentials, degrees I needed to ask myself: what makes me qualified?   Some authors have a passion for reading, since childhood they devoured every classic novel they could get their hands on from Anne of Green Gables to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.   With all this searing through their veins they knew they were going to be a writer some day.  Others shine from college degrees followed by acronyms I don’t even recognize.

I started to feel intimidated, down right dumb.  No ridiculously large book shelf collection here (fourteen read since May 2009 but that’s small potatoes in a writers world).  I had no idea I wanted to be a writer until a year ago and as far as qualifications I ain’t got squat... (just get over it, I said ain’t) but…I’ve got a passion for words. 

Taking a look back on my life I reflected on a few random events that inspired my need to write.  As a kid my mama would take me to Sears toy section and I would always grab up a few mini classic pocket books.  Here I fell in love with The Last of the Mohicans and  short stories by Edger Allan Poe (oh The Tell-tale Heart *shivers*).  Our family received a subscription to  National Geographic, I devoured every single word in that publication.  One time, as a punishment, my parents made me write a summary on a moth article.  Little did my parents know I enjoyed writing and reviewing the moth's history (sorry mom).  In middle school, I rewrote funny stories from  Mad magazine, my favorite was my own rendition of a Barbara Walters interview.

Then I remembered, I am published!  Now you may laugh but I had a poem about the seasons published in a Highlights magazine.  Though my mother has long since lost the publication, therefore my definitive proof is lost forever, I will mark it down as personal victory (don't worry I don't plan on mentioning this as one of my credentials).  Ah poetry, did any writer not channel their teenage angst through poetry?   Yes we all have journals filled I'm sure.

For me the most compelling piece of my life that I cannot deny is my love of words.  Scribbled in various spiral notebooks I have a lists of my favorite words.  Words I've read or heard in passing that I felt compelled to look up their meanings and write them down in a personal notebook.  I remember the first time I heard the word smitten, it seemed to me the perfect descriptive of love.  My obsession with music is fueled by words.  Lyrics are poetry set to music created to transport you to a special place in time.

·       

Though none of these things make me “qualified”  they do quantify my passion and it’s that passion that will make me strong enough for the fight.  Coming from the bottom of the pile, I have no place to go but up.  I’ll do the work, take courses, attend conferences, bone up on the classics, etc. etc.  I’ll do what it takes and then someday I will be published.  So as I immerse myself into the world of writers and the fear of agents and being published starts to get the best of me,  I will remember the famous words of  Muhammad Ali “If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize.”