(As pets, they are poopy, and crap everywhere, and smell. And require a lot of maintenance. But I like to watch them. And did I mention they crap a lot? Yeah.)

And this made me think this was a great writing analogy. My husband often says that I have too much fun writing.

Fun!?! WTF? FUN?? Half the time I’m banging my head against the keyboard, trying to find the right word, because “He was so close to her, like a really close sort of thing” just doesn’t have that ring to it. And don’t even get me started on edits. Or synopses.

So I don’t automatically think ‘fun’ when I think writing. Driven? yes. Feeling the need to create? yes. Fun? not so much.

My favorite part of the book is the daydreaming. The endless possibilities of the story spinning out in your mind. I have to write to move the story along, which just spins along more plot ideas. So that’s what I like best. I don’t like hammering away at the keyboard. I like writing 2 pages, then going to bed and being unable to turn the story off in my mind.

You know, kind of like birds. Cute to look at from afar, but when you own one, it craps all over the place. Stories in the head = cute to look at from afar. Sitting at the keyboard = crap all over the place.

And I like the finished product! But writing it? I’m not so sure.

(I told you this was a bad analogy. I should stop blogging these. People are going to start thinking I’m crazy.)

(btw, if you haven’t entered my contest, it ends Thursday. you can win free books!)

I started working on a new project the other day. Just for me. Just to ease a little bit of the creativity bulging in my brain. If I work on ‘work’ stuff for too long (and I love my Succubus and Dating Agency books, but they’ve turned from ‘secret project’ to ‘work’ now that they’re contracted), my brain starts hissing and spitting like a cornered cat. The only cure for this? More cowbell! A project just for me!

I won’t tell you what it’s about, because when it’s in the burgeoning stages, I can’t discuss it publicly. It drives me insane. Because until I write “THE END”, shit’s gonna change. I could say it’s about a panther-shifter, and then change it to a cougar-shifter on page 200 (like I did with HEAT). Names could change mid-stream. Alarming things of that nature. But I will tell you I’m in love with the phrase from a Selena Gomez song (I know, I know, I know…) — You are the thunder, and I am the lightning.

Perfect.

Oh sure, she looks 14 if she’s a day, but I’m more interested in the song than the video. Mom and Dad, you might like this one. (Also a note to Mom and Dad, avoid the new Gaga video. I like it, but I don’t think you’ll like it. Fair warning. She crazy.)

This book is also a bit of a stretch for me because it’s in alternating 3rd person POV. I joked to poor Meljean earlier today that it’s awkward switching to the hero’s head for me. It reads something like this:

Heroine: Oh my. What just happened? Where did everyone go?
Hero: YOU PRETTY.
Heroine: Um, that’s very nice I think, but I’m curious to know what is going on.
Hero: YOU MINE. ALL MINE.
Heroine: Oh dear. I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding–
Hero: HULK SMASH.

Okay, not really. It’s actually not that bad now that I’ve slept on it and re-read! But once I get about 50 pages down, I’m probably going to have to send to my sister to see if it’s horrible or salvageable. We shall see.

Yeah. Not so much. Here’s how my weekend of writing went.

Stare at page, wait for inspiration.

Make breakfast, wash dishes, consider cleaning house. This is all procrastination. Settle for watching random videos on YouTube instead.

Write 30 words. Contemplate crying.

I must be writing in the wrong POV! Start a new file. Write two sentences.

Gnash teeth. This doesn’t sound right either.

Take time off of writing to watch: Curling, Women’s Ice Skating (on DVR), Aliens, UP, Moon, more Curling, and Ice Hockey.

Go back to computer, write a page. Am convinced of my brilliance once more. Time to switch POVs with the scene break!

Thirty minutes (and 200 words) later, no longer convinced of my brilliance. This POV feels so wrong.

Maybe I need to switch projects. I switch to an old project, but it’s not the one I want to be working on. I rattle off a few pages, realize that I’m probably going to have to rip them right back out, and re-open the document that is bugging me so much. Back to square one.

Go back to the plan to do the original 1st person POV. Try again. This time for real – starting now!

…or starting right after WHITEOUT. And some Curling. And some Hockey.

Seriously – that was how my whole weekend went.  And it’s not the first time that it’s happened to me — it’s happened a lot lately. My books need to start with a clearly drawn opening scene, and if I don’t have it, I can’t move forward until I do. I always pooh-poohed people in the past when they told me this, but I’m a victim of it as well.  I’ve learned to trust my instincts over time, and if I’m constantly going back and rewriting the first chapter, it’s not working for me. There’s something wrong with it.

At least I’m smart enough to recognize it now, right?

Anyhow, after Sunday proved just as fruitless as Saturday, I took the rest of the evening off and just thought about my story. Thought about why it wasn’t working. Why weren’t my characters fun? Not FUNNY – the funny comes naturally if everything is working as planned. But the story wasn’t fun – it was dead on the page. Boring. I didn’t even enjoy re-reading it myself. And if I can’t get lost in it, how can I possibly expect anyone else to?

Then, of course, it hit me. I’d included a dark storyline that put my heroine in danger right at the beginning of the story. And this is a story that needs to start out light. Why couldn’t I move that plot piece to the middle of the book? Did I have enough conflict to start the book with the minor conflicts? And after thinking about it…I realized I was pursuing the wrong conflict.

Just like that, the rest of the story fell into my head somewhere about 10:45 last night, when I was laying in bed. I sprung up out of bed and ran to my desk to write notes to myself for about twenty minutes. My husband is used to this by now, so he kept sleeping.

But now I’m excited about my story again! My new outline is perfect, the opening scene is fun, and I think I have it down right now. I’m going to go home and scrap the 6k (weep) that I already have written, but I think I’m moving forward correctly now, and I’m thrilled.

(And nobody probably cared to read about all that but me, but yay me for finally figuring it out!)

I’m a lot like Meljean in that I can’t listen to songs when I’m writing — but that doesn’t mean that they don’t inspire or evoke certain characters or images in your brain. Writers are a bit like magpies in that we take tiny pieces (song lyrics, images, etc) and cobble them together in our brain for inspiration. A lot of writers use collages. I cast my characters and create a personality ‘sheet’ before I begin.

And a lot of characters have songs attached to them. Here’s what springs to mind for me at the moment.

Jackie Brighton — my succubus — doesn’t really have one specific song. Because she’s the main character and she’s so layered (at least in my head) and constantly having to change and adapt, her songs change a lot too. But when I think of her, I usually think of Fiona Apple and this song.

Or Garbage, and this song:

Remy’s a lot easier – she’s definitely a P!nk song. Fun, bouncy, sexy, and doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Noah has always been this song for me:

And Zane is this song. I adore the emotional rawness of it.

The world from the viewpoint of the angels is something along these lines.

From the succubus POV? More like this.

I have a few songs in mind for my new project, but that’s another post.

My character dossiers are written, my opening scene is in MAH BRAINZ and I’m ready to write.
(and ridiculously excited about it too)

Keep in mind that this is not final draft, and is subject to all kinds of tweaky things, and is a little rough.

#

Clearly Ethan was not familiar with flying coach.  The Serim he hung out with must have normally chartered their own planes, because my companion scowled at every person that came down the aisle as I tried to read the in-flight magazine.

“I do not like this,” he murmured as a large man entered the plane and moved to the back. “This is not a defensible position in the slightest.”
“Of course it is,” I said, not looking up from the newest issue of National Geographic that I’d found crammed into the seat-back in front of me. “We’re in an exit row.”
“My knees are touching the seat in front of me,” he whispered with something akin to horror. “How am I to leap to your defense if I am pinned in my seat?”
“Um, you don’t?”
He looked affronted at the thought, and his hands flexed suspiciously. I would have bet money that he was wishing he had his wooden bō in hand. He looked as if he wanted to whack a man in a business suit with it.
“Calm down,” I said, flipping pages in the magazine restlessly. “It’s a long flight and it’ll go a lot faster if you sleep.”
“I do not sleep.”
Right, I kept forgetting that. I was usually the only one that usually didn’t sleep around here. “Because your mother was a succubus, right?” At his stiff nod, the plane began to roll forward on the tarmack. Ethan’s hands clutched the seat arms so tightly that I thought he was going to rip it off, and I smacked his hand with the magazine. “Why don’t you tell me more about Enforcers?”
Anything to distract him before he got an air marshal on our cases.
Ethan gave me another frustrated look, though his hand relaxed a little on the seat. “We serve the Serim council with our lives. What more could you wish to know?”
Obviously Ethan was still working on his social skills. “How old are you, for starters?” I would have bet money that he wasn’t thousands of years old like Noah and the other Serim. He didn’t have that weary cast to his eyes that the others did.
“I am twenty-eight.”
Well, that wasn’t too bad. “Huh. I would have pegged you younger.” Like, twelve, if it wasn’t for the six-foot-six body, broad shoulders and hands the size of clubs. “So what other cool stuff do Enforcers get? Did you get super strength?”
“I am stronger than a succubus, yes.” He frowned at me as if I were asking him what color his underpants were.
“Dur. Everything is stronger than a succubus.” I leaned in close as the plane roared and tilted back, and we took to the air. “Did you get the curse?” I yelled over the thrust of the engines. “You know, the two day sex thing?”
He flinched and gave me an offended look – so did the lady across the aisle from us. Oops. But Ethan looked twice as scandalized as the old woman. “You should not ask me such things, Jackie Brighton.”
“Why not? I’m curious. Your boss wanted me to carry a bun in the oven, the least you can do is tell me about your kind. I didn’t even know you existed.”
He ignored me, jaw clenched, until the plane leveled out in altitude and the flight attendants got up, rolling the heavy carts down the aisle.  Ethan seemed to compose himself after that, and gave me a quick, dismissive glance. “We require good deeds.”
I had already pulled out my magazine and was flipping through it again. I glanced up as he spoke under his breath. “I’m sorry, did you say good deeds?”
He gave me another stiff nod. “Good deeds.”
“Like…a boy scout?”
He looked at me, chagrined and puzzled. “What is a boy scout?”
Good lord, where had they kept him for the past thirty years? “Never mind. So…good deeds, huh? Interesting. How big of a deed?”
He shrugged, still ill at ease with discussing the topic. “As big as it needs to be. Small deeds fuel me for a small time, larger deeds for a longer time.”
Interesting. “So…that’s why you’re helping me, right? This is a really big good deed?”
He gave me a warning look. “I am helping you because Noah Gideon asked me to assist you and I owed him a favor of his choosing. Just because I require good deeds to survive does not mean I am immune to the plight of others.”
Touché. I gave him a chagrined half-smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you sound like a junkie.  Or a douchebag. So you owe Noah a favor, huh? What for?”
Ethan’s eyes were carefully blank. “That is a private matter between Noah Gideon and myself.”

Obviously I’d steered the conversation off the tracks. Ethan had shut down – I wouldn’t get any more out of him. “Well, whatever your reason, I appreciate the gesture.” I patted his hand. When he flinched, I pulled back. “You okay?”

He nodded, his eyes still wide as he stared at the flight attendant as she rolled the cart down the aisle a few inches, then halted again. “I am not used to so many people so close.”
Yeah, about that… “Where did you say you grew up again?”
“In a sanctuary. Many of the Serim have hidden from the outside world, choosing to spurn its evil, licentious ways. I am a guard there. Or I was until Ariel called me to duty.” He did not seem pleased by it, either.
So Ethan had grown up in some sort of monastary. I wondered if that was where he’d met – and worked with – my boyfriend Noah. “So did a lot of people live in this sanctuary?”
“Just the Serim.”
“Just the Serim?” I raised an eyebrow. “You must have had a few chicks there at least once a month, right? To serve the curse?”
He gave me another stiff look. “The others went to town on regular excursions. I did not. My needs were served at home.”
Boy. Not all his needs, if I was missing my guess. Great. Just what I needed to rescue my ass. The forty-year old virgin.

#

Hope you enjoyed it!  (ETA – sorry about the formatting! It might look better over at my Livejournal.)

Hope everyone else had a good weekend. All I did was type.
(And I’m STILL NOT DONE. AAAAH.)

Then it is done! Or at least, the first draft is. And then we’re immediately jumping back in to the second draft and clean-ups. I’m feeling good, overall. The book is moving along, and a few pieces I was mentally fudging around with seem to have slipped into place as I write, which makes my brain hurt a lot less. My notes page on the book has gone down from two full pages of bullet points to  2/3rds of a page.

Not bad, not bad. Not the most exciting way to spend a Saturday night, but it’ll do.