Confessions of A Writerholic

"Well, evil just compounds evil, doesn't it? First, I'm sentenced to a computer tutorial on Saturday. Now I have to read some computer book. There are books on computers? Isn't the point of computers to replace books?" -- Cordelia



Procrastinating a bit on writing my synopsis/outline as I'm listening to BTVS musical soundtrack and think that they should bring that musical episode to the stage--I'd see it everyday.(I'm a nut over Buffy the Vampire Slayer; if you knew me in real life, you'd think I was crazy in the way that I can pop out a quotation if I see something relevant to it. *GGG*).

"Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" is one of the best books I have ever read. I think it's better than "Sushi For Beginners". I am so envious of Marian Keyes because she is such a good writer! LSIGM made me laugh myself to death, it made me cry and it made me re-read it immediately after I was finished. I'd catagorize it as chick-lit/women's fiction. In the midst of Lucy trying to find the man a psychic said she was going to marry, she deals with the discovery that her beloved father is an alcoholic, that she has always dated broke, slimeball alcoholic men because she saw them as a way to fix what she couldn't with her father; there are super-duper hilarious blind dates, roomates from hell, crazy co-workers, a horrid boss and Daniel, her male best friend who is a player and has been in love with her forever. I really love this book because Lucy could have been me if my parents hadn't gotten divorced when I was 12. But I adore Marian Keyes now. She has the most unique voice out there and she is able to make something that could be sad, (melo)dramatic and sappy into something witty,funny and entertaining.

The end of procrastination...boohoo...

posted by Angie @ 5:21 PM

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

~George Gordon, Lord Byron

Poem snippets and Buffy quotes. And maybe random quotes I stumble across.

###

I set up a blog for my writing excercises(poems, short stories, prose, blah blah blah) because I realized that just because I'm not doing any actual writing on a manuscript just yet doesn't mean that I couldn't not write something(other than email) at least once a day. It was a revelation that came to me last week after I was really mad and really frustrated over a personal matter and I just wrote the little scene(hey Jane, is it a scene? *G*) that is below, and felt a huge relieving of my turbulent emotions. (Plus, that little scene helped me find the place for this nomad premise and H/H that I could not fit anywhere.)

Also, I read Zuckerman's book "Writing the Blockbuster Novel" and when I pared away his infatuation with his clients, I was able to gain some insight into how to advance my own writing. Basing my new insight upon Anne Lamott's shitty first draft and combining it with the example Zuckerman gave of Follett's many drafts for his synopses; I am going to return to my former work habit of writing detailed synopses before I sit to write the actual manuscript.

I am not a pantser. Pantsing makes me break out in hives because my mind is so twisted and bizarre, in my few attempts at pantsing, my stories have turned into complete hybrids of whatever came to my mind that day and what I thought I was trying to write. It's not a pretty sight. *G* (And I am sure that it'd take me forever to find a lucid thread beneath it all.)

But, before, I'd only write one synopsis and then write the manuscript. Suffice to say, the finished product was only 45% better than if I had pantsed it. Follett makes as many drafts of his synopses as he has to, and I am going to follow that.

Plus, I am uber excited over the morphed WIP because I said "Screw You NY!"(but not in a means way, of course. *g*) and set this book in Paris. I have made peace with the fact that I will always gravitate to France or other places outside of the UK if the characters/plot warrant it, and I shouldn't fight it for the sake of The Market. No one's equipped to tell the future, regardless of whether a degree says you can, or if you hang a sign above your door and claim to. So, I'm going to write what I want. Plus, some advice Judith Ivory gave me has been chewed upon:

You know, from where I sit, the market just isn't as tight as anyone is saying. Slipping and pulling just isn't necessary. A good book has always been a book an editor--somewhere somehow--finds a way to publish. If you have a great book that can only be told in one time period, be it an enormously unpopular one, tell it in that time period anyway. If the book is a fine piece of work, it will sell. Editors take chances on books that stir their souls. Stir their souls. Then trust that the world is a kinder place than people are saying here. Editors fight for books. That's their job.

That's all I need to do as a writer. Write the very best book that I can each and every time regardless of what others say, regardless of what I say: just do it. No one can predict the future regardless of how many degrees they have or whether they hang a sign over their door stating that they can. And isn't it always the risk takers; the innovaters; the fearless ones; who break out and are able to capture what they want?

###

On the reading front, I am laughing myself to pieces over the antics of Becky Bloomwood in "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan". I also read:

"The Sinner" by Madeline Hunter(was better than I'd hoped; I hated Dante in his brother's book)

"A Well Pleasured Lady" by Christina Dodd(am I the only person who didn't see the H/H has two crazily flawed people the way reviewers have? *blink* And I hate when I read reviews and hear people rave about books, and then when I read them, I don't see what the big deal is.)

"Upon A Wicked Time" by Karen Ranney(Deja vu. I swear I've read this book before. Except I haven't. Weird.)

Nonfiction: I'm reading "How to Grow A Novel by Sol Stein and re-reading Evan Marshall's books.

After Shopaholic, is either "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" [I've read Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister and I am enthralled with the author's vivid reinterpretations of fairy tales(-ish. The Wicked Witch isn't truly from a fairy tale.)] or "Lucy Sullivan's Getting Married" by Marian Keyes.

posted by Angie @ 1:30 AM

Giles: "Does this look familiar to either of you?"
Buffy: "Yeah, sure. It looks like a book."
Xander: "I knew that one."


I'm reading Austen at the moment. Partially to assuage my need for the new releases(can you lust after a book? *G*), and partially because it's been sitting in my bedroom for a few weeks, fermenting, and I hate to return books to the library unread.

...Which is how I came to have six or seven non-fiction books on various subjects lying about my room with bookmarks stuck between the pages...

But, should I feel guilty for never having truly read the works of Jane Austen? I've only really read Pride & Predjudice, and that only because I had to write an essay to win a scholarship.(And I lost, FYI. Only because I didn't really pay much attention to the book. g*)

"But...Austen is a classic! You cannot truly be a fan of the Regency period without having read her(or Georgette Heyer...who personally, bores me and reads quite cold)!"

Well, I haven't and I'm trying to make up for it now. My attention span has widened a great deal since my junior year in HS, so my eye isn't wandering when I'm trying to read a passage. I'm also tackling a Poe anthology after Lydia Joyce mentioned a few Poe stories that her WIP is inspired by. And let me tell you, Poe is...Poe. He can write some pretty chilling and suspenseful stuff. Plus, I've learned that to be a good writer, you must be a good reader. And study classics as well as current fiction.

On the writing front...the MS, the old one I was planning on rewriting, has morphed. It has morphed into something entirely different, and while I always feel guilty(dumbly) for having weak manuscripts or story ideas lying on my hard drive, I am learning to accept that I'll always have things like that occur, and that every idea I have doesn't have to be a story. In fact, how it morphed was a fun, yet excruciating experience.

Now, my heroine's always seem to be the Hero of my manuscripts, so I start from there and follow the adage "if your hero's a firefighter, make your heroine an arsonist". The original, old manuscript, I moved it to a train. Still cinderella, but with a masquerade angle to it. Then, I moved it onto a ship because the train was too small for what I wanted to happen. But then, it stalled because my original reason for my heroine to be travelling from America to England didn't fit with the new setting.

I then threw my notebook in the back of my closet in frustration.

Two, Three days later(meaning, today), I'm burning a hole in the paper, trying to find out what the hell this story was about! (I'm only halfway there; my hero's not here yet), and so, I decided to do the Six Degrees thingy. The "What If" game.

Story goals poured out like water and then, then, one of the what if's began to form into a that's it. Yay! But then I began panicking because that new heroine story goal began to hurtle in the direction of a plot sketch that I'd made over a month ago, that I liked, but couldn't fully round it out. And I'm back to the guilt, because I really, really liked that story. So now, I'm working on my hero, on the rest of the story and how I'm going to mesh things together.

But suffice to say, this historical romance--and the chick-lit idea I'm sketching out--is based on an Audrey Hepburn movie(s). *G*

Who, incidentally, is one of my favorite old Hollywood actresses and a style icon. Come to think of it...earlier this year, I was obsessed and rented all of her movies and watched them over and over.

Funny Face, Breakfast At Tiffany's & Charade are my favorites.

Craft Link: 1000 Verbs

posted by Angie @ 12:35 AM

A raw quickie from a flash-idea I got last night

Paris, France 1896

A shot rang out in the darkness.

###

From far away, footsteps tapped hesitantly; the sound muted against the plushly carpeted floors.

Jacqueline Marie-Louise D'Arblay pressed trembling fingers together in a sign of prayer, her heavily kohled lids closing tightly, her rouged mouth moving quickly; the soundless words tumbling from her lips like a babbling brook. She had once been a faithful Catholic; attending the richly fragranced, plodding services with a ferver that awed even her simple mother. But it was certain that this sin, compared to the numerous others she had committed was irrevocable; near unforgivable. And yet, temporarily reverting into the bright eyed, honest child that she once had been, the paters and Hail Mary's fell easily from her wicked tongue.

The footsteps paused just outside of her door; a floorboard creaking beneath their heavy tread. His tread.

An icy ball of dread formed in her gut and the prayers became more violent; almost rebuking, as though she were blaming God for the sickening situation she had found herself in. It was laughable. Blaming God for her sins. She had been the one to abandon him, to mock and laugh at him, to tarnish the former reverence had name had used to evoke in her person. And for what. Him.

Her protector. Her lifeline. Her tormenter and betrayer.

But now he was dead. And she was far from free.

"Dead God in Heaven," She murmured breathlessly, opening her eyes and standing. Standing to embrace the damnation she was certain approached.

In an absurd, familiar gesture; one she used when awaiting his return; she smoothed the dark, chestnut curls that escaped her chignon before pressing the wrinkles from the skirts of her crimson evening gown. She placed her palms flat against her side, shielding the mingling stains of gunpowder and blood, holding her head high as she stared at the door.

The heavy, brass knob rattled once, twice, before she heard a click. It echoed throughout the oppressive silence and she refrained from flinching, from showing fear, or remorse, or better yet; anything.

The door opened on a silent glide, the muted lighting flickering behind her licking and lapping at the edges of the room, leaving her pursuer in the shadows. His light, crisp fragrance was sharp against her nose and tongue; horse, leather and soap. The familiar scent brought such a wave of acute longing, her knees weakened and she turned her face away from him to hide her reaction.

Oh, how she longed to have the right to reach for him; to curl into his arms--to curl into him. But she, the betrayed had also been the betrayer, long ago losing that right.

She swallowed silently, feeling his heavy, intense gaze lingering on her; touching along the bruises that marked her jawline, the finger shaped bruises that shadowed her neck, before raking the remainder of her body in the insolent, bold, and confident perusal she remembered of old.

Just as quickly as he had stared, his focus swept away and by the swift intake of breath, she was certain he had then discovered Charles' body ,lying where she had left it.

It was so odd, she thought, the trembling of her hands betraying her unease, how powerless and vulnerable Charles looked in death. How useless and weak his broad, massive hands looked in eternal repose. The stocky, plain looking man didn't look capable of many nor all of the atrocities that he eagerly heaped upon her slight, willowy frame.

"What have you done?"

His low voice vibrated within her, stirring up long surpressed emotions like wind disheveling leaves that strayed along the edges of the boulevards.

"He is dead."

His steps were swift as he approached her, and the next she knew, she was staring into icy wintergreen eyes. Bright eyes that were framed by impossibly thick lashes. And lines of...dissipation? Age? No. He was too fastidious to wallow in drink or women, and he was not much older than her eight-and-twenty years. Involuntarily, her eyes dipped to his mouth, notcing the grim crescents that surrounded them, the wicked looking scar that sliced through his upper lip.

His fingers tightened their hold along her jaw and she winced. He cursed fluently and dropped her jaw, moving away and running a hand through his thick, honey blond hair.

"What happened, Jacqui?" He asked quietly, his back to her.

She opened her mouth to speak, a sickening feeling of doubt creeping into her mind. This situation had fallen from her hands the moment he asked that question of her, his voice full of anguish and trust. His faith in her shook her, confounded her, frightened her. Especially after what she had done to him. She didn't deserve it. She wouldn't deserve it.

"I killed him."

"You didn't." He turned to face her, his gloved hands clenching at his sides. "I know you Jacqui, like I know my own self, and you are not capable of such a crime."

"I did," She approached him, holding out her palms. "He hit me, I picked up the gun I purchased a month ago and shot him, point blank."

She forced a satisfied and unrepentant smile onto her lips. "Three times. Twice in the heart. Once in the head."

His eyes narrowed and he grasped her shoulders, shaking her, dislodging her elaborate coiffure. Pins dropped onto the bloodstained carpet, tinkling in time with the sudden chiming of the clock.

"Dammit Jacqui," He shoved her away when she remained calm and detached.

"Are you going to arrest me?" She fused her wrists together in imitation of handcuffs.

"I am not." He said in a tight, clipped voice.

"Then, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing," He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping even more. "for now at least."

A vague pang of guilt stabbed her at the thought that this man, who already carried the weight of the world upon his broad, somber clad shoulders, was burdened even more, by a woman he should never have tried to protect.

"What about Charles? The servants are certain to notice a rancid smell, if not the actual body."

Icy green eyes cut across the room to stare at the violence ravaged body of the man she called her husband, before returning to focus on her.

"You never should have--" He cut himself off, closing his eyes for a moment.

"I never should have what?" She pressed, ignoring the warning voices that shouted in her head.

"You never should have formed a union with him." He ground out.

"Chere," She smiled brittlely, sauntering over toward the sideboard and pouring herself a tumbler of brandy. "You know I always go my own way."

"I know," He had followed her without her knowledge, looming tall over her. "It was what I loved most about you."

"Don't say that." She felt sick. That word always caused her stomach to churn with bitter memories and regrets. "You can't have loved me. You never knew me."

He stared at her impassively, plucking the glass of brandy from her fingers and slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes locked onto hers, placed his mouth where hers had vacated, and drank.

Her skin felt tight beneath the form fitting evening gown, her mouth drying as she watched him swallow, the tightly corded muscles of his neck flexing and shifting with the swallow, forcing her eyes down, down, downward to rest against the steadily beating pulse at the base of his neck.

How dare he be so calm inwardly as well as outwardly when inside, she was a quivering wreck.

She flicked her skirts away from him as she stepped lightly toward the open door.

"Where are you going?"

"To bed," She called over her shoulder.

She couldn't deal with this. First Charles. And now him. She could never deal with him; a circumstance that never failed to irritate and anger her.

When she stepped inside of her warmly lit chamber, the crackling fireplace casting a comforting glow over her ornate four poster bed, she made to push the door closed behind her. Only, it wouldn't budge.

She turned around, her eyes landing on a gloved hand, traveling up the coated arm before meeting his mocking smile, cold eyes and sardonic twist of his heavy eyebrows.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"What does it look like?" He slid inside, shutting and locking the door, leaning back upon it and crossing his arms.

"Get out."

"Make me."

"The servants--"

"When did you ever care for their opinions, cherie?"

"The body--"

"I locked the door with one of the keys I used to enter the house."

She pressed her lips into a thin line, her body stiff with the knowledge that he would not depart until his whims were satisfied. With a silent oath, she spun on her heel and made her way towards her dressing room. He followed.

"You have no right to be in here."

"Don't I?"

He repeated his words when she refused to answer.

"You don't."

He moved past her, blocking her path with a knowing smile that caused her face to heat. That inflamed her even more. She hadn't blushed since she had been a girl-child, and by the glint in his eyes, he knew it as well. His smile turned charming.

"Don't I, Jacqueline Marie-Louise, Madame Bastien St-Georges?"

posted by Angie @ 11:23 PM

Ms. Calendar: You're here again? Kids really dig the library, don't cha?
Buffy: We're literary!
Xander: To read makes our speaking English good.
~ I Robot, You Jane


To assuage myself whilst I'm still working the kinks out of my Egypt set HR, I opened up a manuscript I wrote,hmm...seven months ago or so and read it, with the anticipation of rewriting it and submitting it somewhere.

Let me tell you, I have come a long,long,long,LONG way since then. I was laughing so hard as I read my quasi-horrible historical romance because all of my errors leapt out at me at once. My CP's can tell you, my sentences are long sometimes. And sometimes, they are so long, they are one paragraph--it's that darn rhythm I hear in my head. But this MS takes the cake for longwinded sentences.

Add POV switching like mad--but not head-hopping--,scant description, a tiny amount of really deep characterization, and characters that are slavering over each other and don't really have any interaction outside of making out, and you have this MS.

But the things that do leap out at me on the positive, is that my dialogue was funny. It truly was. I found myself laughing constantly and swearing up and down that there is no way that I wrote those lines. Also, I could feel the exuberance coursing from the sentences. Exuberance that I somewhat lost when I became obsessed with The Market and editors,agents, currently published authors, and trying to write that way from the jump start.

I've been trying to recapture that naivete and enthusiasm that I had when I first began writing, and fusing it with the peace and knowledge that I have now, and my revising this old MS is helping.

It's also a shitty first draft that I can test my SFD resussitating skills on. Also, I now see the benefits of allowing a manuscript to rest for a good amount of time. Because of this, I'm able to look at this 7 month old manuscript with a jaundiced and skilled eye that knows what to fix and how to fix it. Whereas, if I had tried to revise this manuscript a month, or two after I finished it, I probably wouldn't be able to make a (hopeful) masterpiece out of it.

posted by Angie @ 5:12 AM

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"--Robert Schuller

I feel as though this MS--that I is still in the baby stages--might be my point of breakthrough.

Why?

Because this is the first idea/premise/plot that I've had, that I must do tons of research for, that I'm actually having a human villain featured, that I'm being forced to allow my characters to drive the plot, and that I am having to hash and rehash what the bloody story is actually about!

That little fear demon that I keep flicking off of my shoulder keeps trying to climb back and whisper in my ear:

"Don't set it in Egypt, dearie! It's less work if you keep your characters in a setting you are already familiar with. Ignore your fascination with other countries and set this story in London."

"Tsk,tsk. If the plot or the characters aren't coming to you at this moment, just toss this plot away and work on something easier."

"You don't even know what this story is about? Your other stories didn't act this way. I told you, go work on something easy. Say, an independent heroine and a rakish lord in Regency London. That's much easier to write--the plot,setting, and character prototypes are already there for you!"

"This is way too--" SPLAT.

That's the sound of me kicking that demon to the curb. I've never had this much of a problem with a story or characters, and I've never had a story haunt me the way this one is. It refuses to allow me to give up and set it aside, even if I wanted to.

This is forcing me to push aside my idiotic visions of everything coming out perfectly just because I said it should. This is making me remember the incidents in my art career where I shouldn't have given up simply because what came out on paper, wasn't what I saw in my head--on only the first try! I'm an artist, but I am so stupidly stubborn sometimes, that I get hard-headed and obstinate and it ruins the excitement that I formerly had over whatever project I had been planning to work on.

Now I totally get the quote I had put on an earlier post: "Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Some things may come easily, and some things may come at a much harder effort; but quitting because it isn't as easy as I thought it should be is a poor excuse for mediocrite. Each day that I have awoken to write has gotten me to the point that I am at right now. Do I wish I had come to this conclusion earlier? Sure. But every day is a winding road, as Sheryl Crow says. You don't know what's coming around the bend to make you a better person, and I would hate to allow my past mistakes to be the things that caused me to miss my dreams.

posted by Angie @ 10:37 PM