Three Things Thursday

1. I had no idea the blog had changed. I like The Vermilion Christmas Theme.

Cool Ann Dee and Cam.

🙂

So Ann Dee and I have about two pages of our book written.

I haven’t read her part.

But I know we both talked about breakfast. Ann Dee told me.

That’s hat happens when you write a book with someone and don’t read each other’s stuff.

Soon we will be able to read each other’s stuff and then . . . well, we will write a book that falls in the genre that editors aren’t supposed to want any more of. Yup. Dystopian. Plus there will probably be a lot of food stuff going on. Like breakfast.

2. One Hour On, One Hour Off

It actually worked. I was able to write a chapter of the book I’m working on with Cheri and work on my own novel, too. I had to do about 30 minutes of research for the historical fiction. Some people do love research. Yes. Some people do.

:I

I haven’t perfected the timing yet. But on days where I must get writing done AND do several other chores, this is good for me.

One thing I found was when it was time to stop writing, I could do that easily.

When my hour was up and I was maybe helping my mom or Carolina, I couldn’t just stop.

Maybe Two and Two would work.

3. Cheri and I are signing this Saturday at The King’s English, 2:00 in the afternoon. Manelle, our illustrator, will be there, too. It’s weird to think we are writing the fourth book of this series. It’s also weird to think it’s going to be cold for a long time.

Boo.

Research Trip for my For Real Book

This is me and Cam last weekend on a research trip:

So glam. We left our kids and took off for twenty four hours of totally intense and scholarly research. I think I’ll set my next book in Hawaii and the one after that in Italy. It’s important to really know the setting. Get a feel for the locals. That sort of thing.

The good news is I am going to have a third book come out in the near future! Yay! The bad news it’s my plotty book that is giving me fits. But that’s what it’s all about right?

The problem, if you haven’t guessed from my past few posts, is that I have been struggling with the characters. Really really struggling and this has sort of shaken me as a writer because I feel like characters are my strength. Find the right character and everything slips into place. The problem is sometimes a plot appears before the character and blah blah blah I’ve said it all before. So there has been heartache with this novel. And lots and lots of scene cuts, start overs, backtracks, etc. Because of all this, I have realized a few things that have to be clear in my head before I feel like I’m in my groove*.

1. When I sit down to write can I see my character? And I don’t mean physically, I mean emotionally. Do I understand who she is? Why she does what she does? Why she doesn’t do what she doesn’t do?

2. Can I see where my MC lives? Can I actually visualize her house? Her neighborhood? Her room? Do I feel like I’m there with her?

3. Can I see all the other characters in the community of the novel (whether it be a family novel, a town novel, a civilization novel)? Do I see how they all fit in? If it was a regular podunk day, what would each of them be doing? Watering the grass? Eating cheesecake? Throwing knives? What is their relationship with the MC? How does the MC feel about them?

4. When I write, is it flowing or do I feel like I’m just writing to write. Sometimes it’s fine to write to write but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and look at why a scene feels so laborious. Maybe I need to try something else, go at it from a different angle, play with it a bit, or perhaps go eat cookies.

That’s all I have for now. I am tired. And happy.

*And it’s okay if this groove takes a long long time to get into (I keep telling myself this).