The story ideas, they're attacking!

So I signed up for this writing challenge in May - 31 stories. Short stories. The only stipulation is that no matter what the length, they must be a finished story (finished = beginning, middle, end). But the ideas! They're haunting me early! It's like someone turned on the faucet, and I don't have the right wrench to turn it back off.

Let's just hope the creative flow stays running once May hits.

I woke up with an idea. One of those ideas that won't shut up. Ever have one of those? I get them from time to time and generally, those are the stories that end up working. This one just sat there screaming at me until I got out of bed, opened my laptop and started writing.

The weird thing was, this is the not the sort of thing I usually write. In fact, I've never written plain old general fiction before. I'm a genre kind of girl. It blame it on the fact that I'm currently working my way through (meaning it sits in my car and I read when I'm waiting to pick up my son from track) Friedman's Fables. Which also isn't the kind of book I'd normally pick up, but there were slim pickings in the sections where I pick up books for my NaNo writing group prizes and it seemed like something anyone could get something out of. For the record, it is exactly that.

It's April 28, and I've just given birth to an 1,800 word short story called Sunset Cruise that I'm in love with (for at least today). For the record, I'm holding this in reserve as one of my 31 stories in case I miss a day because darn it, I wouldn't have even had this 'problem' if the challenge hadn't nudged my creative faucet.

Update: Two other ideas are knocking at the door. I'm fending them off for now. Hopefully they'll gather some backup and mob me tomorrow.

May Challenge: I should be committed

Whether that be committed to writing or in the psychological sense, you be the judge.

It's nearly May. It's not near November. It's not even near June when I plan on doing Camp Nano (Because, yes, I am insane, thank you for asking.) But I'm nearing the end of edits on A Broken Race, and I'm not ready to dive into another novel project until I get this one wrapped up - which means a synopsis and query head banging session is in my near future. That leaves me with finding something writerly to occupy my time while my percolator finishes a few things and the last two chapters go through critiques.

This is where the evil little mention of 'hey there's this writing challenge in May' comes in. No, no I really shouldn't. But darn it, the seed is planted! Enter: A Story a Day in May. Witty name, isn't it? What is it? Exactly that. One short story each day in May. (Or the days you commit to.) I haven't done flash fiction in a while, so I'm thinking that's my goal. Short and simple, one a day. I can do that, and who knows, maybe one of those shorts will blossom into something larger later on - like in November and I actually am totally committed to writing.

Will I hang out on their website? Probably not, I have enough distractions in my life, but I have signed up and I will be writing. Care to join me? *cough* Fred? *cough*

Weaving a novel

My favorite part of editing came upon me yesterday. That moment in working on a novel that the light bulb stops flickering and stays lit. The point where my percolater goes *bing* and the questions I've been pondering are suddenly answered. I want nothing more than to curl up with my laptop and connect all the dots that I've just seen before I forget the knowledge my subconscious has just bestowed upon me.

For me, writing a novel is much like weaving fabric. I start with thread. Some of it is pretty crappy quality but I weave it in anyway because I don't have enough of the good stuff to make the design I see in my head. The thread knots. It breaks a few times, so I tie it back together. Occasionally I even use the wrong color. Hey, I never said my rough drafts were pretty to look at.

Once the fabric is done, I take it off the loom and watch in horror as one side pulls all crooked because I wove that section too tight and another section has huge gaps because I wove it too loosely. I spend weeks pulling out the crappy thread, inserting good thread, and adjusting the weave until it looks uniform. But when I show my cloth to other people, they point at the knots and the spots where the pattern doesn't quite line up. I spend a few more weeks fixing everything until surely it must be just right.

And somewhere in there it hits me--the point where I see that the pattern is much more intricate than I'd first thought. And I know just what to add to create it! Who knows, I might even add a few sequins for a little sparkle. (In this case, they were black sequins--the sparkle was quite dark.)

I've still got a little embellishing to do, but I'm liking what I see. What does your moment when all the threads fall into place feel like?

Playing along with Lucky 7

No, I wasn't tagged, but I was intrigued. And really, what better way to tune out not one, but two mother freaking robins now pelting my window, than by scrolling through my WIP to see if it passes the Lucky 7 test?

Bird lover disclaimer: These birds have covered my deck railing in bird poo because they sit there all day between attacking my window and sitting in the tree ten feet away when I bang on the window. I put big white clings on the outside of my window. I put a huge freaking hawk cling on my window. I even taped a 3ft by 4ft piece of paper to the outside of my window (which blocks a lot of my needed natural lighting, I'll have you know) and still, the stupid robins are hurling themselves at the very edges, were a one inch strip of window is still there. (Hey, I need some sunlight, all right?) What the hell, you stupid, poopy robins? What the hell?

So this Lucky 7 thing is to see if your WIP holds up to the 'is this interesting all the way through test'. Something should be happening on every page. The rules to the Lucky Seven are as follows:
*Open the document for your current MS/WIP
*Go to page 7 or to page 77
*Go to line 7
*Copy the next 7 lines (sentences or paragraphs) and post them exactly as they are written. No changing or cheating!

Here is the designated excerpt:

He felt her neck. Dead. A perfectly good breeder, dead. Dread took hold of him. “Did Jack kill her or you? What happened here?”

The Simple backed away. He shook his head, but didn’t utter a word.


Nothing better than a body to spice things up! If you feel like playing along, consider yourself tagged.

Banging your head on the window

As I type there is a Robin banging itself against my picture window. Repeatedly. I rather feel like this Robin.

I spent the majority of my Easter plunking away at chapter twelve of A Broken Race. Yes, it was fully written and all, but I didn't like it. It had repeated information and seemed to be missing some vital connection points between Chapter nine and fourteen. So I added them in. Ta Da! All fixed!

Oh hell. The previously 3,500 word chapter is now 7,000 words?!? *insert Robin body slamming the window*

And there's no tension at all? *more Robin*

But we need the connection bits or the story gets lost between point A and B. Sigh. *insert sleeping on it*

All my pretty pastel Easter words are getting flushed. I just spent the last two hours of my morning reworking the first half of the chapter to add some tension and severely reduce the word count. Thank you Robin, for understanding my frustration. Oh, and it's your reflection, you idiot! Quit doing that!


I'm off to hang something on the window and contemplate the second half of chapter twelve. I hope your day is less frustrating than mine and Robin's.

Fools, Writing and Eggs

Being April first I feel like I should have come up with some fantastical fib to attempt to fool everyone with, but I decided to spent my creative energies elsewhere. Instead I've spent yesterday and today catching up on edits for the previous three chapters of A Broken Race. Yeah, probably time better spent, but a fib would have been fun too.

Only five more chapters to run through the critique mill before A Broken Race gets fully spit back into my hands. So far so good with only a few minor noted hiccups. I know, I've just cursed myself, but I am truly happy with the feedback so far - especially from those who have caught some staging slip ups on my part.

In other creative news, it seems my Easter egg project post has been selected as a finalist in the Easter Craft Challenge hosted by Happy Hour Projects and Here Comes the Sun. I feel I've already won by having this project done weeks ahead of time (rather than next Saturday when I would have realized I didn't even have the Easter decor out yet.) So thank you to the lovely hosts of this challenge for getting me thinking about Easter much earlier (on time) this year. If you'd like to stop by and check out all the finalists and cast your votes, here's the link.

A sprinkle in the well

While my creative well still need a few days of torrential rain to get anywhere close to capacity, things are looking up. I spent the morning (when I should have been working) putting the finishing touches on one of the shorts that has been glaring at me and started in on the other. At least I feel like I've accomplished a little something on the writing front.

Now I just need to get to last week's chapter edits. Oh, and that work I put off this morning. Bad me.

My creative well runneth dry

It's been a hectic couple weeks around here. I've not done any writing beyond editing A Broken Race. The Percolator is giving me glimpses at how to cut Trust's word count before it tries another foray into queryland. Healer is glaring at me. No one likes short stories glaring at them. Especially kinda creepy ones. I'd intended to have that one revised and back out in submissions but that just hasn't happened. Children of the Leaves is looking like its about ready to gang up with Healer any minute.

I should probably keep Blue close while I'm sleeping. He's be happy to eat anything at this point. His translator is still in the shop. Poor guy...err...umm...male alien?

So what the heck is keeping me from writing? Workity freaking work work.

The not-quite-but-sorta-in-this-case problem is that I have a fulfilling creative day job. (Which has also become an evening job recently). Thanks to a somewhat overwhelming workload, my creative juices are being sucked dry. By the time I collapse in front of my writing computer, I'm running on fumes. Keeping up with edits is all I can manage at the moment, and I'm a week behind the critiques that are coming in so 'keeping up' is a relative term.

On the plus side, bills are getting paid and we're planning a vacation this summer. Let's just hope the Percolator doesn't explode before things mellow out a little around here.

Eggs, Spring and yet another creative distraction

Mother Nature decided to make spring come to Michigan during spring for once. It's kind of crazy, because in all my years this has never happened. We might not have snow, but it's still cold and usually raining.

With the first day of Spring coming in just three days, we're (vastly) enjoying temperatures in the upper seventies. I've even cleaned out a few of the more protected flower beds close to the house (because this IS Michigan and for all we know, we might have two feet of snow by next weekend). Crocuses and daffodils are flowering. Have I mentioned how crazy this is? We're several weeks ahead of schedule here.

And so am I.

Easter usually hits me as an 'oh crap, that's next weekend?!?!' event. Which means our Easter decorations usually sit out for a whole two weeks (maybe). This is a little sad, because we have a long running tradition of painting wooden Easter eggs every year and I'd prefer to enjoy them a little longer after our effort in creating them. This year, we're on top of things!

When my son was born fourteen years ago, I had this grand idea of painting an egg for him every year so he'd have a little memento to take with him when he eventually moves out. Yeah, I was kinda planning way ahead, but this comes from a similar thing my mother did for my sister and I when we were little. We picked out a new Christmas ornament each year, and when we moved out, we had a pile to start decorating our own tree with. Well, I do that too, but the overachiever in me had to one up my mother and pull in a second holiday.

But now I have two kids and a lot less time. You can probably figure out which years were more of a last minute rush than others from this photo. We've done glitter, and little designs. That second one in the bottom row was finger painted by one year old fingers. And some years, I've actually had time to sit down with my tiny paint brushes and have some fun.

My son is rather past the excitement of painting eggs. In fact, he'd probably much rather calculate the number of eggs he'd have by the time he moved out by pi and multiply by the circumference of Jupiter and then applying that to some ungodly number theory game he learned in math.

Thankfully, my daughter is my mini-me and loves painting so she paints her own eggs now, which frees me up to take over the task of creating one for Mathboy. He also loves Nerf guns, which is why, this year, I decided to use that particular phase to decorate his egg.

Ok, so it's not particularly Easterish. I gave up on that years ago and went for documenting what ever they are into at the time.

My daughter has hermit crabs. So yep, we have a hermit crab egg.

A dragon egg? Sure, why not.

Swords? Definitely.

My daughter was a little easier. Some flowers, glitter and more glitter! That worked for several years before she started painting her own.

A couple years ago it occurred to me that I should make a few eggs for myself or I'll be left with none when these kids finally do move out. Tie dye was fun in egg form for something different.

So how does one make one of these things? 

It's pretty easy. First, get thee to a craft store and buy a bag of wooden eggs. You might notice that mine are different sizes. Some years I had left overs. The medium size come four in a bag. So do the small ones. The large ones are sold individually. Some years I had to go with whatever size was still on the peg a week before Easter. Hence, we have an assortment. 

If you're fortunate, you might find a brand of wooden eggs that are round on the bottom. Most are not. This is ok really because it makes it much easier to stand on the table to paint and dry. Look for ones with the smallest level of flatness on the bottom. You won't notice that once they're all painted and piled in a basket.

 Then you'll need some acrylic craft paint. Just a little goes a long way. Gather some brushes, water and some inspiration and you're ready to go.

 Paint a base coat. You can either paint a solid color or water the paint down a little and do a wash. I'm rather fond of the wash so the wood grain shows through a little. For this year, I did a wash of mix of pearl white and pearl blue. If you opt for the wash, it dries very quickly and you can get right to painting.

If you're going to add glitter, you'll need wet paint to for the glitter to adhere to. Be aware that painting over glitter isn't the easiest thing so only put glitter in the areas you don't plan on doing anything else with. You could also add the glitter to smaller spots at any point by shaking it onto any wet paint area - making little dots or squiggles of paint works wonderfully. 

 And then paint your design. Yep, it's pretty simple. I'm a fan of long, thin bristled brushes, mostly because it better hides the shaking my hands do these days. I usually do something more in the random design arena on the opposite side of actual painting so it can look Easterish if it ends up with right way in the basket.

And then there's the other side. 

At this point, I write their names and the year on the bottom and bring it outside for an overall shot of Krylon clear coat. The clear coat also seals in any glitter.

Once it's dry, it goes in the basket--where it will come out several times as the kids go through the pile and organize them by year (as my daughter did in that long picture), and chat about which ones they painted, and hide them, and find them (or I find them a month later). The best part about them is that they don't chip, they don't rot, you don't have to find a way to eat a dozen hard boiled eggs and they make a great conversation piece year after year. 

And now I can check that little project off my mommy list for year. Hooray!

Time to get motivated

Ever feel like flinging your uncooperative character across the room? Well now you can! Want to stomp on their stupidity? Literally crush their limbs...err...whims? Yep, you can do that too.

Made from gloves, which I'll toss out the trendy term 'upcycled' to pretend I'm up on the lingo, these little guys (No, I didn't use that extra finger to make them gender specific) are ready and waiting for your abuse (a.k.a. motivation). They are posable and padded for to protect your knuckles.

I'll use one of my current characters as an example.

"Hey 152, can I talk to you a minute?"

"Okay."

"So in that last chapter, I thought I had issues with William slowing the pace down with all his tidbits of history."

"The Williams are bad."

"Yes, yes, we know that. But it turns out William wasn't my problem. It was you!"

"Me? What did I do?"

"It seems your killing people, even by accident is making you difficult to sympathize with. You're going to have to cut that out."

"But, it's not my fault. It's what I do. I don't want to change!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Okay! Okay! Rewrite me! I'll change! I promise!"

Yep. They work. And I feel better too. Win win!

Character motivators, coming to a OCGR Nano raffle near you. Or me. Yeah, mostly near me. Sorry.

Victims of the Knife: Malfunction

A distant scream yanks my attention away (yet again) from editing A Broken Race.

I spin my chair around and scan the paper covered floor. There, in the corner by last November's dismantled ream wall, characters run around like they've lost their minds. Delilah is on her knees, sobbing. Nekar throws adverbs left and right as if searching for one in particular. Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him shouts threats on the top of his lungs.

 The object of his threats comes into view as I draw closer. Blue sits in the middle of a bloody, uniform-strewn clearing. He appears to be chewing something.

 "Blue, what the hell are you doing?"

"Having a snack." He holds up the sleeve of one of the uniforms.

 Holy crap, there's a hand dangling from it! "You've eaten the Barthromians!"

 Blue smiles around his mouthful of pale flesh. "They were good."

 "Since when do you eat humans?"

"I don't. They were aliens. They just looked like humans."

Ms. Wildstar taps me. "He has a point. About them being human-looking aliens, that is. You said so yourself." I glare at her. "Weren't you the one screaming?"

"That was Trala." She points to the quivering woman on the ground beside Delilah.

"Oh. Weren't you supposed to be introducing Blue to everyone? How did this happen?'

Ms. Wildstar sighs. "He said he was hungry. I went to get him some food." She holds out a bowl of discarded undefined fantasy novel 'food'.

"Seems he was too hungry to wait." I pluck the new alien from his messy plate of a clearing. "Blue, seriously, what the hell? You ATE my Barthromians."

His eyes, on their foot-long stalks, blink at me unabashedly.

Nekar groans. "That was horrible."

"Shut up." I turn back to Blue. "Well?"

"I thought I made my intentions quite clear when you introduced me to everyone. I said I looked forward to eating them."

"No. I'm pretty sure you said, meeting. Guys?"

The gathered discarded characters nod.

"See? Meeting. Not eating."

"Stupid translator." His tentacles sag. "So when they were running around screaming as I tore them limb from limb, it wasn't because they were excited?"

"Um. No."

"Ooops."

Victims of the Knife: The New Guy

From the shadows under my desk comes a concentration-busting drone of sobs. I turn away from edits on A Broken Race and search for the culprit.

I discover a blubbering blue mass of tentacles. Ms. Wildstar sits beside it, patting one of the long, thick appendages. She glares at me. "What did you do to him?"

"I wrote him a nice letter."

"You call that nice? You dumped him."

"I dumped him nicely. I have other projects to work on and his wasn't going anywhere. Remember my resolution of LESS? This falls under cutting losses so I can devote my story-fixing peroclating time to stories that have a hope of getting published."

"But you hoped his story would get published. Why would you up on him?"

"He was created for a specific prompt. When he was rejected, I changed him for a wider market. He never quite flowed right after that. We covered this in the letter." I turn back to my laptop and the more promising story waiting for me.

A tugging on my leg proves just as distracting as the sobs had been. "What now?"

Drooping eye stalks atop a climbing mass of blue tentacles make their way up my leg. His prolific tears soak into my pants.

I sigh. "Since you're intent on not going away, I suppose you want to meet everyone?"

He bobs his eye stalks.

"Everyone, this is Blue. He's an alien. He's blue. Thanks to being horribly misled by our government, he's now very paranoid and will not be taking any vacations in the desert. He enjoys filing thorough reports, good food, females and the familiar comforts of his spaceship. And apparently most things beginning with the letter F. His dislikes are people that won't listen to him when he tells them their world is about to be destroyed, his boss, probes of any sort, and misinformation."

Blue raises a tentative tentacle and waves it. A shrill female voice says, "Hello." Blue turns a shade bluer and bangs on his translator. A booming male voice says, "Hello. That's better. Worthless piece of malfunctioning crap. I look forward to meeting all of you."

"Happy now?" I ask him.

"For the moment. Got anyone around here that can fix translators?"

Ms. Wildstar beckons to him. "Let her get back to work before she axes someone else out of spite. I'll show you around."

I let the two of them be and settle back into editing in silence.

Absence makes the heart grow...balls?

Dear short story,

When I wrote you well over a year ago, I loved you. You were witty. You were dark and you made me laugh.

Then I took you out to meet my friends. They didn't get you. They confided that you weren't quite right for me. That maybe you weren't as funny as I found you to be. Some were gentle, knowing that I loved you, while others outright said that we'd never work. Their words made me sad because I really thought we had a future together.

That's when we did that little stint in heavy duty counseling. I told you what I loved about you. You offered to change the things I didn't. We worked hard on our relationship for a few weeks. Tweaking things here and talking it out there. We even tried a little bit of a different direction, but it was never quite as fun as it was at first. We both knew that.

You went away for a while, promising to come back when the time was right. I moved on, though secretly waiting for the day when you'd show back up, all polished and trim, ready wow me and bring me back to that wonderful feeling we first had.

But it's been over a year and I hadn't heard from you. So, wondering how you were doing, I peeked in--not that I was stalking or anything, honest. You agreed to meet and I was excited. But when we sat down to catch up, all I got was a clammy, limp handshake.

You hadn't polished anything. In fact, you were far more lackluster than I remembered. Those weeks of intense counseling ruined you. They sucked out your humor--dark and misunderstood as it might have been. They turned you into something I'd never intended you to be.

While I had captured our magical first days together on my flash drive, we're too different now. I've moved on. That magic is gone. It's time for you to move on too. Thanks for the laughs, short story. We had some good times together. But its over. I hope you understand.

-Jean

Some Cyborg Weasel Fun

Immersed in editing mode as I am while A Broken Race works its way through its first round of critiquing, I've been staying busy with other little creative projects to get my 'make something new' fix. Sewing has been fun, but since spend most of my workday in front of a computer, sometimes its easier to sneak in some creative moments there.

So last night, I retired my two year old cyborg weasel cling and borged this little guy. Now he's armed and ready to stalk me during all those times I'm wandering around on the internet rather than writing.

I'd attempt to take some better close up pics of all the little details but the darn glossy finish made it very difficult to get even this pic to turn out half decent. Who came up with the idea of a glossy finish on a laptop anyway? Windex and paper towel manufacturers had to be in on it.

Thanks to Ian, I just had the realization that I have the file for this. Duh. How about I just crop some bits of it for close ups? *smacks forehead*

The temptation of a shiny new plot

I'm sure you've been there, set on a plot, in the middle of one, bored with one...and then along hops a plot bunny. It sits there, staring at you, enticing you with its promise of something better, something fresh, sparkling and new. Ooooh shiny!

It captures you with its hypnotic stare. Never easing. Never resting. Taunting you while you slog through your current project. Sowing seeds of doubt over which thing you should be working on.

"Just take a few days to get to know me", it says. Try this out. You might like it. You might like it a lot better than that thing you're working on.

But you know what? If you give in to the plot bunny... more will come! They breed like...well, bunnies! Lock them away until you need a new idea, but don't give in to their hypnotic stares. Oh, and keep them separated!

Yes, another NaNo raffle prize is born. Bunnies, monkeys, birds... what could be next?

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 3

Time to hop back on the SSS train. This week we meet the Matron and William. William is pretty ticked that I picked one of his less than shining moments to share with you, but he'll have to get over it.

In this scene the Matron isn't happy with the fact that a Jack has managed to break into the women's room and harass her charges.

“You take care of this, William, or we’ll all be sorry. You hear me?”

He put on his most placating smile. “I will.” 
“Oh save it, you impotent ball of fat. This is about reviving humanity, not about getting me to stop nagging you." 

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Screw hearts, bring on the monkeys

Guilt monkeys that is. Yes, it's Valentines Day, but bah, it's time for yet another creative explosion! (I'm a total romantic, can you tell?)

This project was more fun than a pile of monkeys. I'd go with barrel, but I don't have enough (nor do I plan on making that many) to fill one.

I'm blaming this sewing tangent on Adrianne too. She didn't even have the pattern for it. No, all she did was suggest something I'd already been considering: adding actual guilt monkeys to our NaNoWriMo menagerie. 

The pattern came from prowling the internet. Evil, evil internet! My starting point came from here. I added a tail, because it seems I have a thing for adding tails. And really, what's a monkey without a tail? It's just wrong, that's what it is.

These unimpressed little guys take about 40 minutes each from cutting to stuffing and are all hand sewn. I've found this is the perfect project for placing me in front of the tv with my kids - not something I normally do - which my daughter has enjoyed. Since this is an easy and mostly mindless project, I'll likely keep at it for a little while. Next up, monkeys with different expressions. *rubs hands together*

But first, I should get a little writing done before they start flinging poo at me.

A little bird told me

My efforts to cut back on my various obligations has led to a little extra time which has in turn lead to a creative explosion. Not only have I been writing more lately, other projects have demanded to be worked on. My sewing machine has been getting a workout.

These Babbling Birds will be part of this year's NaNoWriMo prize selection. Ever wish you had one of those little birds everyone claims told them the juicy bit of info? Well now you can have one. Babbling birds are sure to offer all the best gossip on what your characters have done in their past or what they might do in a given situation. Who's going to hook up, keep a slave in the closet, or re-gifted that birthday gift from their mother and got busted? These little birds know and they can't wait to tell you. They really shouldn't. No, really they couldn't. But if you must know...

This little project was inspired by my fellow ML, Adrianne. She's always suggesting things that light my creative fire. Darn you and your creative distractions! She made this pattern for cute valentine gifts. I twisted them to avian gossip slingers. I'm sure this says something about us, but I'll let you draw the conclusions.

You can find her pattern and step by step instructions here. Along with not so innocent intents, I added wings, a fabric tail and button eyes. I would also like to add that good old cotton fabric is ideal for this project. I had some heavier stuff sitting around for other projects (which will be featured here soon) and tried it on the cream-colored birds, but as you see, they look a bit stiff. It was also much harder to turn their beaks right side out.

As a slight side blaming note, this project was encouraged by my need *cough* want *cough* to try out the Drtiz Tube Turner I'd purchased months ago (for yet another sewing project that I haven't really started yet beyond cutting some pieces out). These are awesome tools. I shall never sew small pieces again and dread turning them right side out. Now its so easy! I used it for the birds themselves and the wings and tails. The rounded dowels that come with the kit also are prefect for pushing stuffing into all those little hard to reach places-like beaks.

In search of a little funny

In my effort to be less this year, I'm seeking out ways to be less stressed. Laughing seemed like a good start.

The first book I read this year, Sara Barron's, People are Unappealing  made me laugh inappropriately in all sorts of places. When I spotted this book on the shelf, it was the title that grabbed me. Normally I'm a cover kind of girl. Titles aren't my thing. Usually. But this one was so damn true that I had to nod in agreement and skim a few pages. While I found it entertaining, it wasn't the sort of book I usually read so I put it back on the shelf and went about my search for books on writing--which was why I was at the bookstore in the first place.

A couple weeks later, still haunted by the amusing title, I made my way to the bookstore and sighed with relief when I found it was still there. I'm rather one tracked minded once I'm set on something and if the book hadn't been there, I would have had to drive to another bookstore until I'd found it. Ordering it, and then having to wait for it, just wasn't an option.

With my new purchase in hand,  I went home and cracked it open. And laughed. And laughed so hard that I had to leave the room with the book rather than attempt to explain to my husband what was so damned funny in front of my kids. FUPA anyone? Filled with all aspects of unappealing life from dealing with parents to sex. The vulgar observations were so up my alley that I brought this book with me everywhere. It fit right in my coat pocket. I even schemed my way out of the house for an extra half hour of quiet reading time by offering to drive to the pizza place, order, wait and then bring it home. I'm pretty sure the girl at the counter thought I was on something from the amount of snickering I was doing over a particularly amusing passage wherein real people are "renamed" to protect their identity.

I was sad when the book ended. I'd had so much fun laughing my way through that one that I had to get another. I went back to the bookstore and came home with four more books. One of which was Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Also known as the second book I read this year. Not quite as funny as the first book of the year, but still amusing and much safer to leave sitting around the house.

Filled with short essays that are the perfect lunch-break size, this book covers everything from speech therapy as a kid to drug binges, artistic expression, jazz bands, leading an unmotivated life, claiming the perfect boyfriend in order to have a house in France and attempts at learning French.

As a writer, the last section of the book where he divulges his daydream characters is by far my favorite. Anyone who desires to best describe their hair as cravy is all right in my book. Curvy, wavy, yep, totally makes sense to me. I've seen that hair. Some great character tidbits in that section, yes indeed.

Laughter. Yep, I feel less stressed already. I wonder what the third book of the year has in store? 

Feeling the love

After last week's rousing critique round of pointy sticks jabbed mercilessly into my uncooperative short story, I'm feeling the warm fuzzies of being back in crit land again. It's been almost a year and the masochistic part of me has missed it. I just need to put the warm fuzzies away and continue to jab the short story until it agrees to convey what it was meant to.

The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany. Liebster means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is love.

While we're talking love--yes, I know I'm early but not a big fan of Valentine's Day anyway--I've been doubly the recipient of the Liebster blog award. Lots of love going around lately. So I must thank, Fred and Chrystalla, both of whom are wonderfully entertaining and talented writers.

If I'm playing by the rules of this award, I'm to pass along the love to five blogs that I love. However, A) Three of the five blogs I intended to pass the award to have already been loved and another didn't want to play along. B) I don't like rules. Therefore, as I sit here surrounded by bloody crit sticks, I'm going to announce that I love you all. There. I said it. Don't expect to hear it again for another year.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have pointy sticks to sharpen and then I'm off to return them to their owners.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 2

In this week's excerpt we meet One-fifty-two, one of the Simples. When I started this story, I never intended to have him become the foremost MC of the four, but with his emotional vulnerability and unique pov, he quickly became my favorite to write.

He’d had a name. A name of his own before he’d become One-fifty-two. He looked at the numbers stamped on his hand. They’d hurt when William had put them there with a needle and ink. But it was part of being a man, of growing up. He’d cried, but not too loud. No one had wiped away his tears.

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Another new old project

What a difference years makes when it comes writing. After blasting through edits on A Broken Race, I was up for conquering another project that had been languishing on my hard drive. I picked Sahmara's Sunset because it had been giving me the puppy eyes the longest.

 Sahmara's Sunset as the distinction of being my very first NaNo novel from 2006. It was the first novel I wrote in thirty days. It proved that I could actually write something that didn't take years to finish. In fact, it was the first novel (and still is to this day) that I wrote knowing what the end would be before I started.

 If only I'd known the middle. This is also the novel I discovered that leaving vast tracts of 'connect the dots later', is a very bad idea. I've since learned that if I'm going to do this, to at least leave an outline and notes in that section.

 Other things I didn't know back before I joined a critique group and did some educational reading that are now driving me insane:

- Utter lack of proper formatting. I've since become a little OCD about this and won't even write a rough draft without it.

- Large blocks of telling. Blah, blah, blah. I'm even dozing off. - Repeating myself. Sadly, that one's never gone away.

- Chapter placement. Yes, chapter length varies, but an 11k chapter? Really? And no, it's not the only one.

- Unnecessary scene breaks. Why didn't I just change a couple lines up a little and continue on? No idea.

- This one suffers from the same thing as my early drafts of Trust and the reason why there are so many discarded characters running about: Anvilitus. Not just repeating myself, but making similar events happen repeatedly to drive a point home.

 But I think it has promise. So I'll continue wringing out my mop and keep my pruning shears sharpened as I tackle this project. One thing is for sure though, it's going to take a lot longer than the last one.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race

Today's excerpt is from the opening of a project from a few years ago that I'm finally getting cleaned up and ready for the big world. This is a conversation between Jack, one of the MCs and a man he's just captured during an attempted raid on his fortress. It neatly sums up what what the story is about.

Gunfire again filled the air.

The Wildman shook his head, tears running down his face. “Please, we just want a woman or two. You have so many.”

There weren’t many, barely enough to produce a steady population in fact, and far too many of them Simples. “Your women are not my concern. Your kind is full of the disease and fifth that got us into this mess to begin with.”

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here

Racing through revisions

Wow, so when I said I thought revising A Broken Race would go quickly, I was right! It's done. Granted, that's about all I've been doing for the past few days, but I've really enjoyed getting back into these characters and the story again. Having only spent 30 days with them before, and that, a couple years ago, I was surprised at how much depth of character I'd crammed into 50k. Darn it, I even made myself a little teary a few times.

Since I've been plowing through NaNo rough drafts, I thought I'd share a few faults I keep finding.

• I do not use contractions. There must be some subconscious 'it counts as two words instead of one that way' thing going on.

• I repeat myself. I rephrase what I've just written, sometimes right after saying it. I get stuck on a particular thought and go at it until I've achieved total anvil status. Sometimes I rephrase a thought several sentences later. It makes for some confusing clean up work. I had to go back again and again to keep those spots straight and it got confusing. Hold on, didn't I just say that?

• I change people's names. In this year's NaNo novel, Nervo became Neko. In A Broken Race, Miranda became Emelda, and Violet who was dead twenty years suddenly was reborn. Oops! I do make notes as I'm writing, but its the secondary characters that sometimes miss out on being included in my orderly efforts.

• Consistancy. There's twelve women. Yet, there are more like forty of them. It was morning, now its suddenly night. When did that character get clothes on? He's only wounded a little. No wait, he's almost dead!

For you fellow CC folks, A Broken Race will be going up for critique very soon. Please feel free to tear into it as I know you love to do.

Onward into a new old writing project

With Trust and it's sequel finally off my writing plate, I'm finally able to give some of my other novels in progress some attention. Yes, I know, that's a lot of finally, but that's how it feels.

After waiting patiently for its turn, fantasy short: Children of the Leaves got a turn in the revision chair. It's up for critique in early next month. I can't believe it's been almost a year since I had a chance to submit anything to CC. And that last thing? It was the first version of Children of the Leaves. It's like I've been stuck in my writing cave or something.

Next up is A Broken Race, a dysotopian novella that was NaNo 09. I haven't touched it since I hit my 50k. The wonderful thing about this project is that it's the first NaNo I actually wrote from beginning to end. There are no sudden blank spots of doom. I set out to write a novella and I did! There are some troubled areas, namely the ending, but for the most part, I'm thinking this shouldn't be a massive undertaking to get it from rough to first draft status. Famous last words right?

So what's this new story about?

In fortress ruled by impotent men and protected by testosterone-ridden powerhouses, One-fifty-two is one of many, a simple man, a worker. But he's not quite as simple as the others thought, and when he sneaks into the the vault where the precious few healthy women are kept, he discovers the nasty secret the breeding masters have been hiding. And it's been hiding in the garden where his food is grown, no less. Emboldened by his new knowledge, One-fifty-two takes back his childhood name, Joshua, and vows to set the women free.

A single resolution, an edit, and a treat

A couple of my NaNo buddies latched on to this idea so I hopped on the boat (yes, a few days late). Pick one word for your 2012 New Year's resolution. It might sound a little odd, but my word is: Less.
Yes, I want to be less this year.
Less busy
Less distracted
Less obligated
Less stressed
I made some good steps toward this at the end of the year. Now I just have to keep going.

The first round of Untitled Sequel edits is finished! Wow, that went fast. Mostly it was cleaning up all the little notes I left to myself when charging through NaNoWriMo. Things like: go back and verify number of days between A and B. Or my favorite: Might want to give MC at least a sheet else he's fighting naked. Oops! Or maybe not... Ok, ok, I'll get him something to wear. Maybe.

There were also a couple typo-heavy sections that I obviously typed with my eyes closed while visualizing a scene. Untitled Sequel (nice title isn't it?) is now going onto the shelf. But, you can tune in to Flogging the Quill very soon and weigh in on the first page.

For the first time in seventeen days I was home alone all day. My beloved silence, how I've missed you! I treated myself to a viewing of the new Conan the Barbarian. As I wasn't expecting anything spectacular in the plot department, I found it entertaining. If you like good-looking, half-naked muscular men cutting each other up with swords, a little sex and generally watching Jason Mamoa do anything, you'd probably enjoy it too. Having watched the 1982 version a good dozen or so times over the years, I can easily say the effects, dialogue and general plot were much improved. There was a lot of blood, violence and the sound effects people obviously had a great time with wet, squishy blood sounds. So yes, pretty much what you'd expect from a Conan movie. I'd call it Spartacus lite. Speaking of which, I can't wait for Season 2!

Year end writing goal met!

I'm happy to say that as of this evening, I've wrapped up this year's NaNo novel, the sequel to Trust. The rough draft came in at 95,000 words and its actually complete from beginning to end. I'm so bad about leaving gaps to fill in later, but this time, no sir, its really, really done. And I like it. I'd toss out that I love it, but it's a rough draft so that would be a little extreme. Let's just say I'm pleased.

I'm also pleased to announce that I found a role for Chuck. I know, he said he was happy here in my last post. I had great plans for him, mentoring him in how to actually be evil and all, but something came up and he was perfect. And no, I didn't kill him. He did get punched in the face, but the medic assures me he'll be fine once the swelling goes down.

This means I can start polishing a few of the shorts floating around on my hard drive and get Trust back into Query land in the coming months. Hooray for starting the New Year without a half finished editing or novel project looming over me!

Hey, there's a first time for everything.

Victims of the Knife: A late Christmas gift

This year, rather than throw myself into the holidays, I've assumed my Gollum-self and hunkered down in my writing cave. Yes, I filled the stockings, baked the cookies, hosted the extended family, cleaned the house, did the tree and presents thing with the kids, but then I ran back to my cave where only the tip tapping of keys could be heard throughout the day. It helps that my family got a Kinnect for Christmas and have been heavily occupied with it, which means more writing time for me.

My goal is to wrap up Trust's sequel, which was my NaNo novel, by the end of this year. Yes, that means there are only mere days left, but I'm almost there!

Which brings me to this announcement from Chuck, the Barthromian captain.

"We're ready for me now?"

I nod. "Go on. The others are listening."

Chuck clears his throat. "As many of you know, Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him vanished a couple days ago. Many of us thought he'd wandered back into the wastelands behind the desk after our plan to get our beloved writer to write us back into novels failed. We were wrong."

Nekar shouts, "Well where did he go?"

Chuck looks at me. "She wrote him into the sequel."

Protests fill the air.

"Now, now, I know this doesn't seem fair, but trust me, we should be grateful."

He leans close and whispers, "And thank you for not keeping your word to write me into that novel."

"You just weren't right for it. I'll find somewhere else for you."

"No, really, that's fine. I'm happy here." He plants a huge grin on his face. "See, really happy. No need to send me elsewhere."

"Suit yourself." I direct his attention back to the angry throng.

Chuck steps to the edge of the desk. "I've seen where he went. We're better off here. Way better off. She may have let him back in, and even given him part of his name back, but he was crazy and she killed him."

"That's right." I eye my suddenly silent characters one by one. "So next time you fill out your Christmas lists, keep in mind that I might give you what you ask for, but I won't guarantee you'll like it."

"This is the part where you laugh evily," Chuck whispers.

"I'll let you take that part. You need the practice. Now get out of here, I have a novel to finish writing."

Wrapping up before Christmas

As the end of the year approaches, kid obligations are in a lull and business slows thanks to the oncoming holidays, I finally have time to get to some of the things I've put off...some for a very long time.

First and foremost, I've had time to work on the sequel to Trust that was my NaNo Novel this year. As of this morning, I've cracked 80k. Woohoo! I'm aiming for 95-100 knowing that I have a lot of things earlier on that I can clean out during edits which will bring me back into the 90k range. Then its getting shelved for awhile so I can take Trust from the shelf where it's been resting since October and polish then launch into query round two.

Then comes one of the projects my kids dread: The mom cleaning of their rooms. The Purge. We started with an hour in each room. So far, two stacks of outgrown clothes, one huge box of books to be donated to my NaNo book drive, and a bulging bag of garbage. Round two tomorrow.

As I baked Christmas cookies this past weekend, I found myself needing my missing seventh cookie sheet to toss into the oven/staging rotation. (Yeah, there were a lot of cookies.) This poor cookie sheet as been sitting on top of my son's bookcase for...egads...umm...years? He'd been working on some little sand on stickers craft thing at the time and we put it away when he lost interest. You guessed it, he never got interested again. So on it was piled his scrapbook and everything that should have gone in it.

Now, I knew I was behind on this little motherly project, but as I unburied the cookie sheet (which was in pristine condition compared to is long used counterparts by the way), I discovered I'd not updated his scrapbook since second grade. He's in eighth this year. *headdesk*

Hours later, report cards tucked away, certificates proudly displayed, pictures attached, and birthday cards, movie stubs, artwork and award ribbons arranged, the much pared down pile was tucked neatly into the pages of the scrapbook and a stack of artwork and reports went into a box in the attic. Whew!

Tomorrow brings my daughters scrapbook, but that's only three years behind. Bah, no problem. Who am I kidding? *shudder*

I'm not crazy, I'm just creative

As I was getting my day started (wandering the internet), I came across this article -- Scientific American: The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric -- and being a little eccentric myself, I had to go check it out. Whoa! How true! Not that I see my characters chasing me around (other than in my writing area), or have a germ free zone, and I do shower regularly, but on so many other accounts, a huge resounding yes!

Critiquing and the Percolator

One of the reasons I enjoy critiquing the writing of others is because it helps me make my own writing better. Yep, I'm selfish like that. Not only do I find it so much easier to point out the things that bug me or that just don't feel quite right in other people's work, but it then makes me think about those exact things when I'm writing. I've become paranoid that if I happen to post a chapter for critique, that same person might read it and call me out on the same issues I've recently harped on them about. My inner editor is armed with a steel ruler and she's not afraid to use it!

Beyond that, in the conversations often struck up after a critique, things I've been percolating on my own writing sometimes hit me. As they did today. I'd been working with someone on a troublesome opening chapter. In the back of my mind, it occurred to me that I had a novel with an opening chapter that had a very similar problem--the tension fizzled by the end of the chapter. It wrapped up too neatly instead of leading into chapter two.

Hours after this virtual conversation, I was out racing from one thing to the next (my overachiever scale back plan doesn't activate for months yet), and a lightbulb went off. I now have the answer to what I need to add to the first chapter of a novel that I haven't touched in over two years to make it work! Swan Queen, there is hope for you yet!

*insert evil laughter and much milking of the giant cow* And if you have no idea what that means, go read this.

Confessions of a recovering overachiever

Sorry for the sudden lapse of silence, but after a month-long blogging challenge with my discarded characters, I've needed a little time off.

Fourteen years ago, pregnant with my first child, I had lofty visions of all the wonderful and meaningful things I wanted to do for and with mhy children. It started with a journal while still pregnant, covering everything from current events, to family history and then milestones as my children grew up. I would soon become involved with their schools, their hobbies, and all things connected to them. We would make our own christmas cards every year, by hand. We'd make Christmas cookies for family, co-workers and neighbors. We had big family birthday parties. This was all great and wonderful and everyone was happy.

However, somewhere around hitting forty I came to the conclussion I'd run out of patience and time. Year after year becomes a rush of one project leading to the next with little to no downtime in between. You may remember that last year I buried my tattered superwoman cape. This year I'm going a step further. I'm allowing myself to put my overachiever tendancies aside and join the ranks of the average.

Last month I offically put in my notice that I will not being taking on the Young Writers Program next November. I also put in my notice that I'll be stepping down from Girl Scouts as of the end of this school year. And even bigger, (because this has been one of my pet projects for eight years now) I'm handing off half my elementary christmas craft program to my new assistant whom I'm training this year. Then, after next year, I'm done with that entirely. That's three huge time-sucking programs crossed off my list. Whew!

I will also freely admit that I didn't make Christmas cards this year. We're using up extras from years past. We're cutting back cookie production to immediate family only. My christmas tree has way more ornaments on one side than the other, and yet, my normally twitchy self is ok with that. Half my outside Christmas lights didn't work this year so I threw them away and I haven't replaced them. In fact, I let the kids put the working ones up and they look pretty atrocious. Oh well.

Now if all this cutting back will give me some of this mythical "free time" to do the things I like to do for me, I'll be a happy average woman.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 30

Well halle-freakin-lujah, we’ve reached day 30! Between getting pricked by paperclips, accosted by discarded characters, being interrogated and doing a little of my own, and holding actual conversations with my Scorpius bobblehead, I was growing a little concerned that this month would end with me losing my goal for this year’s NaNo: to retain my sanity.

As of last night around 9pm, I completed my 50k word goal. The novel needs another 30 to 40k to finish out the draft, but I like where it’s going and aside from some questionable dialogue, my current in-play characters are behaving. One of my characters, thanks to the rewrite of Trust has become far darker and downright creepy in book two. He surprised even me. I love when that happens.

So how much did I write this month? Well, this blog challenge led to an additional 10k, in addition to the 50k novel in progress, at least 10k in planning/organizational emails with my co-ml (I’d get an exact number because I’m curious like that, but it would take way too long), 3k in pep talks and regional forum posts and daily notes, facebook messages of encouragement, answering NaNoMail… yeah, a lot. Let’s just call it that and let my fingers rest, shall we?

And for this last day, I’m to share a link to my story. I’ll compromise and share the opening scene. Enjoy.

I didn’t think my shipping business was overly successful, not to the point where anyone would want me dead over it. But as I lay there on the floor, observing the fine spray of my blood on my office wall, I had to consider that I might be wrong.

Heavy footsteps drew closer.

Damn. I knew I was rusty, having been out of the business for over four years, but it was still disappointing to know that I’d not done any serious damage with the two knives I’d managed to throw before toppling from my chair. I tried to peer around my desk, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.

Rhaine was going to be pissed that I missed dinner yet again.
The footsteps stopped.

Something tingled inside my head. The telepathic barriers I’d erected years ago dissolved as my mental strength faded.

The tingle came again. Familiar.

The black form of my killer loomed over me. “Oh fuck! Vayen, is that you?”

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 29

As I watch my discarded characters--I’d call them darlings, but they’ve ticked me of this month—dismantle their ream wall and reshape all those paperclips, I can only shake my head. Well, that’s not entirely true, I could laugh at the Barthromians that Chuck is making clean up all the camel crap with teaspoons on their hands and knees.

There’s hope for that man yet.

This is what happens when you let characters run amuck with a plot. They make a mess. Sometimes it’s good to see where they will go, how they will grow and the twists that you hadn’t planned on, but there is a limit to the chaos you should let them make. Even in a rough draft. Unless you want that draft covered in crap, keep them somewhat on track.

Since all my characters are busy, I’ll have Scorpius ask the question of the day…or at least put on of the tiny flyers in his hands and pretend.

What was the one thing in which I indulged to keep myself writing?

Bad dialogue. I could say drinking or chocolate, both of which are somewhat true, but no, mostly bad dialogue. When a scene stopped moving, I let someone speak their mind and the sparks started flying. While this is good, it usually resulted in a lot of responses like, “Good” “Fine” “No” from the character being ranted at with an occasional comment to egg the other character on. There will be some definite clean up involved but no, I won’t be doing it with a spoon.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 28

The boys who don’t get blown up run toward me. “We’d love to give you something. Please tell us, what would you like? What’s the one thing you’ve been depriving yourself all November?”

“Umm. Nothing? I can write my 1,667 words in an hour and half. It doesn’t take that much time out of my day. In fact, I’m usually writing around that long every day anyway, just not as productively.”

“How about a DVR full of tv shows?” asks one.

“Or a whole day to surf the internet?” asks the other.

“No, I’ve been keeping up with everything pretty well. Now, tell me, what’s behind that wall you’ve built?”

They run back to the wall, waving their hands over their heads and screaming.

The wookie noise sounds again. And again.

I step on a bent open paperclip. The stupid thing pokes into my sock and I stumble into the paper wall. Reams of paper slide off the stacks, falling behind the wall with loud thuds.

Characters go running in all directions.

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him has two long ropes with…

I do a double take. “Are those camels? Where the hell did you get camels?”

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him leads the shambling and wookie noise making camels toward me. Two Barthromian soldiers leap onto their backs. One falls off. The other scrambles his way onto the back of the camel and hits the camel on the side of the neck. Two huge guns pop out of the sides of the camel’s hump.

“Whoa. Cyborg camels?”

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him stands proudly before the camels with the ropes in hand. “Gun-toting camels. You may remember writing them in a couple blog posts.”

“I do remember that, yes.”

“But you never used them in a novel. Therefore they are a discarded idea. They ended up here.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed them around. Not to mention, I never wrote them into a novel, so they don’t technically count.”

“You can argue blog vs. novel theory with me all day, but we have demands and if they’re not met, you’ll be sorry.”

The second Barthromian soldier finally makes his way onto his camel and produces a second set of guns.

“What are you going to do, shoot me?”

Ms. Wildstar emerges from behind the paper wall and stands by his side. She looks me in the eye. “If you don’t write us back into the sequel, yes. We all came from that novel universe. You can work us in. You can send us back. And you will do it.”

“Hmm. Let me think about this.” I tap my chin. “No.” I point at the gun-toting camels and they disappear. The Barthromian soldiers fall to the floor. “I may let you silly and willful characters run amuck around here and sometimes in my novels as well, but thisis my world and ultimately, I say what goes. So no. No more threats. No gun-toting camels. And no getting written back in.”

I put my hands on my hips and glare down at them all. “You will all go pick up the mess you made out there and go about your business peacefully until I write otherwise.”

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him glares right back at me. “And if we don’t?”

I smile down on him. “You end up with the camels. Deleted.”

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 27

Nekar runs down the path at me as I approach the far wall. He pants and waves his hands. “What are you doing over here?”

“Coming to see what you guys are up to.” I peer over him. So what are you hiding behind that wall of reams of paper? For that matter, where did you guys get so many reams of paper?”

“You bought them months ago. A whole case and then some. It was a back to school deal with a rebate.”

“And you guys are have stacked them up into what looks like quite the fortified wall over here. Are those paper clips sticking out between the reams?”

He glances over this shoulder. “They might be.”

I take another step.

“Hey, how’s your word count coming along?”

“I’m ahead. I plan on reaching 50k on Tuesday. Taking it a little easy today.”

“Wait, what? You’re ahead? We kind of thought you’d wait until the last day.”

“Well I don’t plan on it.”

“But you procrastinate all the time! You work best under pressure. Don’t you think so? Some of your most interesting twists come from word wars. It’s all about the pressure. Maybe you should go get yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate and relax in front of the tv for a while. Kick back, relax since you’re ahead. You deserve some down time. Go on.”

“Down time is for January. I’ve got things to write and people to see. Get of out my way.”

I get a step further before I’m pelted with adverb cards from all sides. Disturbingly, annoyingly, irately, stubbornly, vivaciously… that one had to be lobbed by Delilah. I wade through the cards. “Onward!”

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 26

I can’t take Chuck sitting there, staring, waiting, tapping his perfectly rounded and buffed fingernails on the CD stack another minute. Getting up is the only way to find some peace. This means I have to pick my way through the paper-wad paths, making sure to watch out for wayward paperclips, any booby traps set by Nekar or Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him and attempt not to step on anyone.

The thought of a character squishing between my toes makes me reconsider sitting back down and dealing with Chuck. But no, it’s going to be a long while before I find a spot to use Chuck and I need to find out what all these strange noises are.

Chuck runs to the edge of the desk, stopping just before he flies off the edge. “Wait! Where are you going? You promised to write me in!”

“I’ll be back, Chuck. Just going for a walk.”

My walk gets all of three steps before I step on a card. I pick up to return it to an overturned crate. Sharply gives me a paper cut. Stupid adverbs!

“Thanks. I accidently knocked that over.” Delilah yells up to me. She runs around picking up more cards. “Where are you headed?”

“Over there.” I point to the opposite end of the room where all the odd sounds have been coming from.

“Oh.” She glances around. “Umm. Did anyone ask you a question yet today?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you done any research in your NaNo novel preparation?”

“Not exactly. But I did just finish the first book so if you want to call all those months of revising and plot refining research for the sequel, I’ll go with it.”

“Ok. Sure! Can you tell me more?”

“Not much more to tell.”

“There must be. Tell me all about it. Take your time. I’d love to hear every detail.”

I cross my arms and glare down at her. “It almost sounds like you’re trying to buy some time.”

“Oh no, no, not at all.” She flashes me her most charming smile.

“I wrote that smile, dear. It doesn’t work on me. Now move aside before I step on you.”

She dodges out of the way as I set off again.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 25

Captain Chuck creeps over to my laptop, glancing over his shoulder with each third step.

“No one is watching you, by the way.”

“I feel like I should sneak though, being a spy and all.”

“Well quit it. You look silly.”

“Okay, fine.” He stands up straight and dusts off his uniform.

“Is that hair on your uniform?”

“Yes, and it’s not mine.” He winks.

“I appreciated your message the other day. I’m assuming this hair is related?”

“Yes.” He winks again.

“Is this going to require me getting out of my chair and traversing the paper wads?”

“I’d recommend it.”

“What are you, a freakin magic 8 ball?”

“Not sure. Ask again later.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head. “I take it you have a question?”

“I do. Since this story has changed so much from the one I was cut from so long ago, I’d like to get to know the characters I’ll be interacting with when you write me back in. What are their names and how did you choose them?”

“Write you back in? Oh yes, I did mention that didn’t I. Hmm. Well, I suppose you should know them then. Ms. MC is Anastassia. Her last name is still subject to change so we’ll leave that out for now. I picked her name because I’ve always had a curiosity with the Russian princess of the same name. Not that this Anastassia is a princess in any way, but the name caught my attention.

“Mr. MC is Vayen. His name came from a variation of Vayne, a character in C.J. Cherryh’s Gate of Iverl. I loved the name and his devotion to the FMC. That, in part, shaped Vayen as he came into his own when I switched the entire story to his POV years ago.

“Well then, now I know who they are. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me anything more about them?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see, Chuck.”

He wrings his hands. “Umm, exactly how long will I have to wait?”

Darn it, now I have find somewhere to put him in. I was hoping he’d forget. “Until I get to the point where I plan on putting you in. I’m not there yet.”

“Thanks then. I’ll be waiting over there.” He goes to the stack of CDs and sits down.

Well that's annoying. I guess I should get to writing so I can get rid of him.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 24

The boys who don’t get blown up approach me warily. One says, “We’ve been charged with asking the question of the day.”

“It’s not about music,” says the other one.

“Well that’s a relief. What is it today?”

“Religion,” says the first one.

The other one nods. “Is it featured in your novel?”

“Yes, in fact it is.”

A loud pop sounds in the distance.

“What was that?”

The boys look at each other. “Nothing,” they say in unison.

“Uhh, yeah.” I peer into the paper-wadded landscape but don’t see anything unusual. “Anyway, Geva is the female god featured in my novel. Mr. MC’s people are pretty technologically minded but he still likes to think there’s someone out there to blame for his problems…err…I mean to pray to for help when he’s in a bad situation. He’s not one for actual worship and there aren’t any churches. I’d consider it part of his society’s perpetuated culture more so than a religion as we think of it.

“Ms. MC does follow the religion of the planet nearest where she was during a tumultuous time in her life. Using her telepathic gifts she became a middle-level priestess before giving up after being told she could go no higher because she was an outsider. So rather than bring peace to individuals through linking minds and performing healings, she became a soldier and sought peace that way.”

The pop sounds again followed by a rumbling bray that reminds me of a Wookie.

“What the hell is that?”

“Was that the signal?” says one of the boys.

The other elbows him in the ribs. “We’ll go check it out and get back to you.”

“You do that.”

They run to the edge of the desk and disappear.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 23

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him saunters across my desktop and leans against my laptop screen. “So, how’s the writing going?”

“Pretty good, though not a word yet today. Been rather busy around here with work and getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow.”

“Ah yes, that’s a day we don’t usually see you around here, isn’t it? Too busy dealing with cooking, traveling to visit family and all that sort of thing. No time for writing.”

“I’m having people here this year, so no traveling. I should have time to write. Probably not later in the day though.”

Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him marks something on his hand.

“What are you doing there? Are you writing on your hand?”

“Me? No, not at all. That would be silly. Who does that?”

“You do, apparently. What were you writing?”

“Nothing. Say, I believe I’m supposed to ask you a question today. Let’s see.” He pulls out his creased flyer. “I…uhhh…” He looks around and reads the flyer again, his brow creasing more and more with each second.

“Is there a problem?”

“Umm, no. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He licks his lips and slaps on a half-assed smile. “Do animals play any part in your story?”

I purse my lips and ponder this question for a several very long and silent minutes, taking secret joy in watching beads of sweat form in his brow. “Say, weren’t you feeling ill last time you were up here? Better now?”

“Oh yes, much better.” His gaze darts to his shoulders and then back to me.

“Good to hear. Wouldn’t want you to start sneezing up huge globs of phylum.”

“Yeah.” He laughs nervously. “So animals?”

“No, not in my novel this year. I’ve written in some dogs and horses in the past, but hmm, no just not a big animal writer, I guess.” A nagging thought persuades me to check my calendar. It is the twenty-third. “Have you seen Chuck?”

“The Barthromian captain?”

“Yeah.”

“He told me I should take his place today. Said he wasn’t feeling well.”

“Don’t tell me he’s got what you had the other day.”

“I don’t know. Hey, I’ve got to get going anyway. I’ll check on him and let him know you asked about him.”

“You do that.” Though I was pretty sure my spy was doing a fine job. Chuck had some promise after all.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 22

Glicfip perches on the edge of my very dusty candle holder. “Delilah said I should come ask the question for today. Something about making sure everything was good between you two?”

“Charming girl, isn’t she?” Not gifted with subtlety though.

“She is. She’s got lots of charms.”

“Oh, I’m sure she does.” I hold up my hands. “No details necessary. Don’t want to know.”

“Right. Sorry. Anyway, we were wondering what happened to your other NaNo novels. You seem to write them every year but no one gets discarded. Either than means you write a whole lot better than you used to or that you’ve never bothered to revise them.”

“First off, what’s this we thing? You and who else?”

“The guys. Well, except for the boys who don’t get blown up. They were too busy helping the Barthromians work with the dust bunnies, but now Captain Chuck has shut that all down.”

“Ah. And why do we care what’s going on with other novels?”

“Everyone’s holding onto hope for a way out of this character purgatory.”

“Is this one of those ‘or else’ situations where you try to pressure me into writing you all back in or some mysterious threat will appear?”

His gaze darts around my desk and he chews his lip. “Umm no. Not at all. Why would you say that?”

“Oh, just a hunch.” Delilah isn’t the only one lacking subtlety.

“Yes, I’m writing more carefully these days which means less character casualties—in the discarded sense anyway. Also a sort of yes as to the revisions. I have worked on revising Sahmara’s Sunset and Swan Queen and sold one of the short stories I wrote during last year’s NaNo rebel effort, but for the most part, my attention has been on cleaning up Trust for its return to queryland. I do certainly have plans to get to all the NaNo novels haunting my hard drive at some point.”

“Good to know. I’ll pass that on. Thanks!” He strides to the edge of the desk and descends into the paper-filled landscape.

Victims of the Knife: The NaNo Interviews 21

I rip the masking tape from the Barthomian Captain’s mouth. “Chuck, I have a deal for you.”

“Why would I want to make a deal with you?”

“Because I could keep you up here decorating my tissue box forever. Would you like that? You realize, that being a fictional character, I can just leave out the commonplace things like feeding you, making sure you get bathroom breaks, sleep, you know, all the day to day stuff we writers sometimes skip over and the reader assumes happened? What if it just never happened, Chuck?”

“That would suck.”

“Indeed.”

“You’ve been up here since, what, day nine?”

“Yeah.”

“No shower, no change of clothes, no food, water or a bathroom. Enjoying this?”

“Not really.”

“Those soldiers of yours are morons. Sadly you have the only twinkle of evil among the entire lot of you. I need you back among them. Shut down that stupid dust bunny shelter, find out what Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him is up to. Report back by day twenty-three.

“I’ll gladly go back to my men, but spy on my fellow discarded characters? I don’t know about that.”

“You’re evil! Come on. Embrace it!” I pull the rest of the tape off him, letting him enjoy a few moments of freedom.

“Maybe.”

“There just might be a spot in this novel for you.”

His eyes light up. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“Wait a minute. What was the question for today?”

I hand him the flyer on which he and Delilah had written their confession.

“That’s what I thought. What are your goals for this novel and do you actually plan to complete it? I don’t want to be stuck in some half-finished, archived file for a decade or two.”

“Never fear, Chuck. I plan on finishing this one. Someday soon, it might even go on to my crit group were people will read about you.”

“Read about me? Really? I’ve waited for that for so long!”

“So what do you say?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” He sprints to the edge of the desk and leaps off with a victorious whoop.