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My sister and I were having a conversation about books we liked, specifically in the M/M genre.  Our tastes vary widely.  She doesn’t like a lot of angst, anything that’s too over the top drama, nothing BDSM–in fact, she likes the straight forward, happy, fluffy, two boys meet, have a few getting together issues, fall in love and live happily ever after.

On a whim, I said, “Play a game with me.  Tell me the premise of what you want to read.”

She did.  She told me a bit about the two boys, a bit about their personalities, an overview of the sort of conflict she wants to see, and came up with a cute twist.  Then she waggled her eyebrows and gave me a little “cat-head nuzzling” and batted her eyelashes and asked me to write it,

So, now that’s in my queue too.  And that one will be especially fun.  Because it’s for my sister.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…

It was a dark and stormy night…

Marley was dead: to begin with…

In all my web perusing, I’ve read how other authors write.  One thing I’ve learned, without a doubt, is that everyone’s process is a little bit different.  Some need music, some complete silence.  Some write an outline they stick to religiously, some fly by the seat of their pants.  Some can jump around, writing scenes out of sequence…I, most certainly, cannot.

I have to start at the beginning.  Word one.  While I do “see” scenes out of order, I can’t write them that way.  For me, the only way I can make a coherent story is to start with the first word and write each consecutive word until I get to the last.  That’s not to say things don’t get switched around, added or deleted, and rewritten out of order when I edit.  But for the first draft?  That initial putting the story on the page?  For me, it all starts at the beginning.  

As a reader, the beginning is often what makes or breaks a book for me, too.  That beginning has to grab me, make me want to find out more about these characters I’ve been introduced to, or I find the whole thing lacking.  I think that is, actually, a fairly universal truth.  And perhaps that’s why I need to write that way as well.  If I can’t get the beginning to to grab my attention when the characters live in my head, how can I expect a reader to want to follow their journey?

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not knocking anyone else’s method.  If you can write scenes out of order, more power to you.  I just don’t operate that way.  For me, the beginning is where it all starts.   As soon as I can figure out that, I can write a story.

Sometimes, life just gets in the way.

It’s hard for a person like me, and I’m sure other authors can attest to this, when life gets in the way of putting the words on the page.  But the fact is, life needs to be lived.  There are things that have to be taken care of and, for me, a day job to go to.  And sometimes all that other stuff interrupts the writing.  And as much as you want to sit at the computer and tell the stories that are swimming in your brain, you have no choice but to step away.

It was like that for me last week.  That’s why there was only one post and that is why, regrettably, there was no flash fic on Friday.  I hope it’s not something that occurs very often and I hope it’s not an unforgivable trespass.

But the past couple of days, I’ve managed to get in some stellar plotting.  I have to let ideas percolate for a while before I can even begin to get them on the page.  I see scenes in my head and I have to “play” them several times before I know if they’ll work or not.  I have to write out–long hand–some ideas and notes to see if I can make it to the end of the tale.  I don’t outline in the traditional sense, but I do write notes and paragraphs of the beginning, middle, and end so that I know where I intend to go.  When I’m actually writing, sometimes that changes as I go.  But I need a basic plot settled firmly in my head before I can even think of beginning to write.

I got there this weekend and this week, there should be plenty of words on the page.

Here’s the thing: in my life, I can’t use the word “plan.”  You see, if I plan something, no matter what it is, it invariably goes to shit and the plan falls apart.  So, I try not to make plans, per se, as there is little point.  Either life, or my own idiocy, gets in the way.

But I do make lists.

I love lists.  They help to keep me focused and I get quiet satisfaction from being able to cross things off the list.

Now, I didn’t want to plan out my writing schedule for the upcoming year.  If I did, it would a recipe for disaster.  Instead, I combed through the plot bunnies and made a detailed list of the things that I want to write.  And while they are in no particular order, I do intend to focus on some before the others.

Right now, I’m working on the first thing on my list.  A short story that may or may not turn into a novella.  Also on the list? Rewriting Postcards from start to finish, writing another book that takes place in the same world with a MC we met as a secondary character in Postcards, a paranormal novella, and there is tentatively a contemporary novel skirting the edges of my brain that’s on the list as “That one about the guy.”

Trust me, I know what that means 😉

At any rate, I’m writing and editing.  It’s nothing too groundbreaking, I assure you. In February, Hero Worship will be released in the Dr. Feelgood anthology from Dreamspinner Press.  More details on that as the date gets closer.

The list will, undoubtedly, grow and change as the plot bunnies start hopping.  But that’s all right.  That is the way of it.  In the meantime, I have the list to help keep me focused.

2013 was a big year for me.  And not in the least because my dream of become a published author finally came true.  More accurately, I finally got enough courage to actually submit something for consideration.  That was the biggest thing of all.  If Worth It hadn’t been accepted, I would have been beyond disappointed, but I still would have been proud of myself.  Because I’ve been writing for more than half my life and I’ve always wanted to be not just a writer, but an author.  But I never felt like I had written anything that was worthy of being out there for public consumption.

The first draft of Worth It was actually written over three days right after Christmas last year.  I only had one truly false start when I went to put the words on the page.  It had a different premise when I originally conceived the story.  But then that opening scene–the prologue–jumped into my brain.  I could see, with absolute clarity, Jack and Ryan standing in their special spot saying good-bye.  And once I got those words on the page, the rest of the story fell into place.  Don’t get me wrong; there was much agonizing and tweaking over the next few months.  For all that it was less that 9,000 words, it was my baby and I wanted it to be as good as I could make it.  And then, of course, there were several more weeks of not being able to bring myself to actually send it in to Dreamspinner.  I was scared and nervous; half of me certain it would be rejected and the other half brimming with confidence that it would be accepted.  It was quite a roller coaster ride.

And while I was waiting for news, I wrote Hero Worship.  The submission call had been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks and then suddenly, bam!, the beginning scene hit me out of nowhere.  Literally.  I was standing in the kitchen one morning before work, drinking my coffee, and I just saw it.  By the time I felt that that story was as ready as I could make it and was going to submit it, I heard back from Dreamspinner that they were going to publish Worth It in the Advent Calendar.  That by no means made it easier to send to the publisher, though.  But Hero Worship with be out in February, as part of the Dr. Feelgood anthology.

I participated in NaNoWriMo and successfully wrote 50,000 words in about ten days.  But what I learned from that experience is that I don’t work well with that method.  Even though Postcards needs to be rewritten, pretty much entirely, I have the bones of story to work with.  And I learned a great deal about the way I work as a writer.  And what I need to craft a story that I think is worth telling.  It’s on the back burner for now, but I will revisit it.  I will rewrite and polish and improve it.

But for now, I’m working on something new.  And that feels incredibly good.  The boys are talking to me, they are telling me their story, and I’m getting it on the page.

I’ve learned a lot this year.  About myself as a writer.  About the publishing process.  About edits and blurbs and just how much work goes into the whole thing.  I’ve grown as a person and as a writer.  I hope to continue to grow and change and learn and improve.  I’ll work hard to make sure that I do.

2013 was a good year for me.  I hope all of you out there can say the same.

Here’s wishing you a lovely and prosperous 2014!

I sort of psyched myself out.

It happens.  The words and I were getting along too well and I had so much other going on in my life that we took a wee break from each other.  No big deal, right?  Only, I let the break go on too long and the doubts started to creep in.  And then I started getting that sinking discouraged feeling.  And then there was a spiral of bad and I couldn’t seem to sort anything out, let alone get any words on the page.  I couldn’t even put together  a cohernt thought for a blog post.  For a few minutes there, I was certain I was doomed for Titanic proportion disaster.

But eventually, I snapped out of it, said, “fuck that noise,” pulled up my big girl panties, and put some words on the page anyway.

It’s probably not gold.  In fact, it may just need a lot of work.  But that’s okay.  Because the words are going on the page and I have a new story and a new goal in mind.  And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what I needed to get out of my writing funk.

I have a billion and nine stories in my brain.  Some of the are worth the telling.  And finally, again, I’m attempting to tell them.

I’ve always had a thing for names.  Weird thing to collect, right?  But I have ever since I was little.  I was the person who, in high school, got people to tell me their full names–even when they didn’t want to.  And I hoarded them, cherished them.  Names hold power.

I have a thing about names fitting a person as well.  I always get upset when parents pick out names for their unborn children and do not waver or allow for any possibility of changing their minds.  What if your kid is born and the name doesn’t fit?  And it always irritates me when parents don’t fully think about any ramifications that the name they choose for their child could have.  Naming your daughter Crystal if your last name is Ball might seem cute at the time, but it’s going to put that girl in prime position for teasing.  Yes, kids can be cruel and tease for other reasons, by why give them fodder?  This is my thing though, and I do fully support the right of parents to name their child whatever they choose.

When it comes to giving my characters names, I often feel like a parent, trying to choose the best one for them.  A lot of times, the character just sort of tells me his or her name and it is what it is.  But other times, I struggle.  I’m working on a story now and I got stalled out about page five because the main character, whose voice I’ve been writing in for the last five pages, has yet to tell me what his damn name is.  And everything that I think of just doesn’t fit.  We’re working on it.  But I’m very fortunate that most of the time, my characters’ names are apparent from the get-go.

I will fully admit that I have a penchant for J names.  I don’t even know why.  But characters often have them.  I adore them.  I want to use them all the time.  But then, when I’m writing a scene and three out of the six characters in the scene have a name that begins with J…well, it can get confusing even for me.  And then live in my head, I know them inside and out, so it shouldn’t be that difficult, right?  But it is, because I’m an avid reader as well.  We all know that phenomenon that happens when we read: our eyes catch the important letters and our mind automatically fills in the rest.  So, when there are a lot of J names floating around, it’s hard to keep track of exactly who’s doing and saying what.  I’ve made a conscious effort to steer clear of the J names of late.  In fact, in the last three things that I’ve written, there has been only one character with a J name and she’s a secondary character.

And then are the books I read where one, or more, character(s) have names that I hate.  Can’t be helped and I don’t blame anyone for that.  We all have our own personal preferences, right?  But, at least for me, if a character has a name that I can’t stand, it sort of pulls me out of the story a bit.  That’s on me, of course.  A name that I don’t like can easily be a name that someone else loves.

That being said, I only use names that I like for the characters that I like…and if I’m writing a bad guy, a villain,  a mean character, then that character is probably going to have a name that I despise.  It’s how I’m wired.  But I’m not just slapping any old name on my characters.  Each one is a deliberate choice.  Whether that’s because what they “told” me their name is or I’ve given it immense thought and chosen the name specifically.

How about you?  When you’re reading, or writing, does the name of a character influence the way you feel about that person?

Went on a trip this weekend.

The amazing thing about trips is the absolute fodder for plot bunnies.  I was a passenger so I had plenty of time to work out some stubborn plot points.  But even more than that, there were plenty of more little bunnies being born as I was people watching.  The rod trip took us on the thruway…so there were rest stops.  Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of people you see at a rest stop?  My brain was scrambling to pick up on all the little nuances of all the different sorts of people.  And when I finally made it home, I was scrambling to write little paragraphs of my experiences so that I could use them for future tales.

I’m pretty fortunate.  I can get inspired by the tiniest of things.  Of course, that’s also a bit of a curse, as it means I’m constantly having “possible” stories running ’round my brain.  Now my task becomes sorting out what I do have and seeing if I can write a story.

That’s what I’m working on now.

I always need to write what’s in my brain.  And I’m slowly learning that just because I thought something was next up on the block, doesn’t mean that it actually is. Sometimes, other characters are louder and more vociferous.  And those are the ones that need to make it onto the page.  Sometimes, that means other characters have to take a back seat.

I thought I was going to write the sequel to Postcards next.  I already began working on my Scottish adventure.  But perhaps that guy I saw at the first rest stop needs his story told first.  But no matter what it is, I am writing and working on a new tale.  Have no doubt about that.

The muse has been wrangling all sorts of plot bunnies lately.  A handful of them, at least.  And I sort of didn’t know what to do with them all.  I’m really a “one thing at a time” person.  When I try to work on multiple stories at once, invariably, one always gets left behind or part of something sneaks into another and it’s just a mess.  So, I’ve been fighting with the muse because there’s no way I can handle all the things coming my way at once.  But she came up with a solution.  She’s taken a bunch of bits from all the plot bunnies and made rabbit stew.  And now there are just two distinctly different plots.  And one of them is distinctly happy to wait patiently until I get around to it.

NaNoWriMo was an enlightening experience.  I learned that I can get a massive amount of words on the page in a short time.  But I also learned that, perhaps, that’s not the best way for me to write.  Because having all the words on the page is making it difficult for me to edit it.  Personally, I’m having trouble seeing what needs to be changed to make the story work as a whole.  I loved the experience and I probably will do it again.  But I also know that that rest of the time?  I’ll write more like I have done in the past.  Write a bunch, go back and edit it, and then move forward.

I’m working on edits for Postcards this week, as I have time off from the day job.  But I’m also taking that insistent plot bunny, the one that can’t wait, the one that is most of the rabbit stew and getting it on the page.  Turns out, that when one story is done and I’m beginning another, it’s not distracting to work on edits on the first.  But, for me, polishing is the hard work.  So it’s nice to have some easy work of crafting a story while I’m at it.

It’s out!  Yes, that’s right folks, today Worth It is out!

You can buy the whole Advent Calendar here.   Or just Worth It here.  (Also from Amazon.  Or, if you’re in the UK, here.)

Nerves and excitement are totally warring right now.  I have no idea what to feel!