Things That Go Bump In The Night...

...won't leave me alone. I'm writing this book during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and I'm nearly half-way through it when a secondary character tells me he's a werecougar. WTF? I thought I was writing a straight contemporary erotic romance, and now all of a sudden I have a shape-shifting mountain lion?

Where the hell did that come from? But if that's what he says he is, who am I to argue? By the way, I'm also on the third name for him, but at least he seems happy with this one. Finally. I started out with Jake O'Dell, but the hero's last name is O'Malley and I figured that would be too confusing. So I went with Brock Ballentyne. (I love the name Brock: it's so... manly.)

Nope. He didn't like that. I wrote maybe three pages using that name, when he pretty much stopped everything and snarled, "That's not my name. What the hell kind of name is that for a shape-shifter? That's a rich-boy pussy name." So, even though technically in NaNoWriMo you're not supposed to do this sort of thing, I brought out my book of character names. I knew I wouldn't be able to move forward with the story if I didn't have this guy's name right. I went through Anglo-Saxon names (some good, guttural names there). Nuttin. Moved on to Celtic, then English, then Irish. Still nada.

I don't even think I saw this name on any page, but all of a sudden it was there very clearly in my mind. Kane. It suits him. Tall, rangy but muscular, dark blonde hair worn a little long and several days' growth of beard that tries but fails to cover a delicious cleft chin. (Think Viggo. Yummmm!)

Okay, so I have the first name. What about the last? Ballentyne just wasn't working. It didn't fit him. It didn't fit him being a shape-shifter. (Not to mention that he didn't like it.) I needed something equally brusque-sounding. Two syllables, for a good flow. And it hit me. Maddox. Kane Maddox.

And the writing re-commenced.

Man, I love it when it all falls together.


(NaNoWriMo word count is now 2,190 ahead, only 26,474 to go. And another 600 on the short story, which is going to end up as a short novella, I think.)

I've Got Editors!

A couple of weeks ago, I was assigned the editor for the story that will be in Volume 3 of Torrid Teasers (Careful Wishes). (I've got a picture of the cover below. I know, it says Volume 2, but I've been told it will really be in Volume 3. Whatever. 2. 3. I'm okay with either!) Today I got an email from Jan Janssen, the Executive Editor of Torrid, that my novella, Dragon's Bane, has been assigned to a Senior Editor. (And, just in case you haven't seen it, here's the gorgeous cover that Jinger did for me.)


Woo and hoo! This makes it feel so much more "official." I mean, I've had short stories published in the past, but they were short (under 5,ooo words) and I don't remember having an editor assigned to do anything with them.

Now... I have editors! I feel like a bona fide author!!

(P.S. Yesterday I managed 2,001 words toward NaNoWriMo, and another 575 on my shorter story. All in all, not a bad day.)

The Historian

I bought the book, The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, a few months ago. I made it to page 50 and put it down. Probably 3 or 4 weeks back. I haven't had any desire to pick it back up.

It might just be me. First of all, the book is written in first person, which I've never really enjoyed reading. Plus, it's 642 pages long. For anyone, that's a huge undertaking to read. Let alone write. I'm not sure how Ms. Kostova did it.

Several writers on the FF&P loop raved about this book, which is why I bought it. I mean, it's Dracula. Whether he's the bad guy (as in most books) or the good guy (if you haven't read Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape, The Holmes-Dracula File, and An Old Friend of the Family, you should), he's... Dracula. The ultimate vampire. The original. The one that changed vampires from decaying corpses who rise from their graves to attack their families to sexy, irrestistable creatures of the night who pretty much have people fighting each other to be the ones who get bitten.

This is Ms. Kostova's first novel. First. Novel. 642 pages. In hardback, no less. That's over 160,000 words. Sheesh. I'm having trouble making sure I can keep all the characters straight and have strong enough GMC to get a 50,000-word novel done. More than triple that, and you've got The Historian.

One of these years I'm sure I'll finish wading through this. There has to be something of value in 642 pages. I mean, the publisher saw something. Other readers have seen something.

It might must be me.

NaNoWhatOh?

I don't know what happened, but I haven't touched my NaNoWriMo project in three days.

Okay, okay. I do know what happened. On Saturday I had to clean and had my family over, plus I was still flying high from my news that I took first place in the erotic romance category of FF&P's On The Far Side contest. Concentration was non-existent. On Sunday, I pretty much slept. Didn't get up until 10 (I'm usually up 6:30-7:00 most mornings), and then back to bed at 1:30 until 6:00 (yep, a 4 1/2 hour "nap"). Vegged through some TV, and back in bed at 9:30. Yesterday I got up and blogged, then worked on my manuscript submission to Kensington, which will go out in the mail this morning. Yay!

All of this dithering, however, now puts me almost 5,800 words behind schedule. Oy.

Guess ya'll know what I'll be doing for the next few days. Writing my little fingers to nubs to catch up.

What the hell was I thinking?!?!?

(Oh, well, at least I have Urian now. Grrrrr.)

Novel Ideas

Susan Vreeland, in her article in the November issue of The Writer Magazine, writes about where the ideas come for novels. Much commercial fiction, she contends, begins as a story idea or plot, and then characters are invented and shaped (or misshaped and stretched) to fit the story.

My story ideas just about always start with the characters. It works something like this: there's a lonely, brooding hero. Or a strong, sexy hero with some flaws. (It just about always starts with the hero.) Then I start asking, 'What if...?' and 'Why?'

What if the hero is isolated by choice? Why? Well, what if he's a werewolf? And he doesn't trust himself to be around people without hurting them.

Okay. So, along comes the heroine, who's sassy and spunky and has a takes-no-prisoners attitude (which, okay, pretty much describes all my heroines. Who wants to read about a prissy, sissy girl who sits in a corner sobbing?) What if the heroine needs the hero to help her? Why? Because she has a werewolf after her and the hero is an acknowledged "expert" on werewolves.

Of course, the heroine has no idea that the hero is a werewolf, too. She only knows that she doesn't want to be one. Bam! Conflict.

(This is my story that's in a MAJOR revision for submission to Ellora's Cave. When I get back to it. I got stuck about 21,000 words in, so it's percolating while I do my NaNo thing. Come December 1st, I'm back to my wolfie story with a vengeance.)

So... where do your ideas come from?

When Words Get In The Way

So many times, in our efforts to show our readers our "distinctive style," we're tempted to cut loose and start using flowery language or fancy, nearly unpronouncable words. When that happens (and an editor doesn't correct it), readers are yanked from the story because the writing's too convoluted or they have to grab a dictionary to look up a word they've never seen before.

Our job as writers is not to show readers our "voice", but to give them a story in which they can become engrossed. Write clear, crisp sentences that create pictures readers can see, emotions they can feel. When we write well, readers suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in the worlds and characters we've created. They are unaware of the author--we are invisible.

How many times have you read a book and, at some point, the author intruded and it yanked you right out of the story? Maybe it was an awkward point-of-view shift, or all of a sudden it's the author's omniscient POV that we're seeing. We know that neither of the characters in the scene we're reading know that the monster is hiding in the bushes, but all of a sudden we, the readers, are given a bit of information that lets us know for certain that it's there. Something like... Bill and Nancy had their backs to the woods. Unbeknownst to them, a pair of eyes started glowing with crimson malevolence.

Okay, not great, but hopefully you see where I'm going with this. If Bill and Nancy are the only characters standing by the woods, then the readers should see what they see. Nothing more, nothing less. By showing the readers something more, we've yanked them from the story.

Readers shouldn't be stopped by a word, whether it's because they don't know it, it's too flowery or it's just not quite the right word. Keep it simple. In the example above, many readers might not know what the word malevolence means. It might be better to use the word "hatred" or "ill-will".

Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and lightening bug." Most of the time, the right word is the most straightforward and familiar one. Write "asked," not "queried" or "quizzed." Go for simple, down-to-earth action verbs. Tie the verb with the character's emotions. If your character is angry or having a bad day, instead of having him "insert" a key into a lock, have him "shove" it.

Author William G. Tapply does the following to show him his writing habits: He prints out several pages of his draft, then takes colored pens and goes through the pages, circling the instances of visible writing problems one color at a time. Red for adverbs (minimize the use of adverbs by finding active verbs), green for adjectives (minimize adjectives, substitute specific nouns), blue for the verb "to be," such as "was," "is," "were," and "are" (convert such weak verbs into strong ones and convert passive into active sentences), pink for fancy vocabulary words (substitute clear, simple language), orange for commas (identify long compound sentences that can be changed into two or more shorter, punchier sentences), black for metaphors and similes (do they work? Are they attention getting? Can they be eliminated?) and brown for cliches and trite expressions (take out all of them to eliminate lazy writing).

Try it. Get a visiual picture of your own writing habits that will help you to edit and revise for clarity and invisibility.

Then write some more.

My Muse... She's Fired!

In Thursday's blog, I bemoaned the fact that my fickle Muse had gone off to play, leaving me stranded. After taking a long nap (because my allergies were kicking my butt), I woke to discover that she was down in Texas, providing help to someone who visits my blog fairly frequently--Forrest, better known as "for the trees".

I have decided that she can stay in Texas. Forrest, you keep her, okay? She seems to like you better, anyway. Fickle Muse. (mutter, mutter)

I went out and got a male Muse to guide me, restore me, inspire me. Meet Urian (Greek for "from the heavens"):



Ay carumba! He's all sultry and sexy and nekkid. What a guy, taking off his clothes for my inspiration. Gotta love that in a Muse.

Now, I'm off to throw some stuff in the crockpot that will later be known as chili, brew some iced tea, run the vacuum, dust, unclutter the couch, clean the bathrooms and run several loads of laundry. I'm several thousand words behind my goal for my NaNo project, AND I still have a short story/novella to work on, AND I have final tweaking for my Kensington submission, so Urian and I are gonna get to know each other a little bit better.

Grrrrr.