Blog Hop: The Writing Process plus #Writemotivation update (April 2014 No. 1)

So I've been a bit quiet over here. Mostly I've been busy either revising HJ (for the billionth time), playing on the computer, doing Grad School stuff, or just being lazy. I'll let you pick one.

Anyway, April has started off slow in writing but busy in others.

However, I was recently tagged by one my fellow #writemotivation tweeps, the lovely Carissa and should probably A) do this post and B) update on my goals for the month.

Here are the four questions she asked.

1. What writerly endeavors am I currently working on?
Currently, I am working on the 7th revision of my YA contemporary novel, Hate Jacket. I was halfway through revision 6 when my awesome CP, Bonnie, recommended that I delete one of the characters. It's actually an awesome idea, but it meant I had to go through and remove a primary character and replace them with another. This means starting back at the beginning and reworking some scenes to replace one character with another. Not a huge deal, but one that I have to make sure I do completely or it will be confusing. I'm hoping this fixes the plot issues I've been having.

At the same time, my brain is starting to itch to start a novel that I'm not even ready to start until I'm done with Romeo and Juliet escape Hell (my NaNo novel that I'm stopped at 40K with and need to break apart and maybe do some plotting to figure out how I got stuck). Said new novel is awesome and shiny and based on the music of Meg Myers. If you follow me on twitter, you'll probably see me talk about her music. It's dark, moody, obsessive, and it gives me awesomely cool story ideas (I feel like a creeper talking about it all the time, but it is just that awesome). I let her music influence a story, titled THE KNIFE, that got published in Issue 17 of Veux Magazine. They did a beautiful spread of photos with models and everything. Blew my mind. Check it out.

Anyway, I had to get some of the Meg Myers story, titled Something Beautiful, out of my head so I could focus. I wrote the first few lines and they really popped. Now my brain is all WE MUST WRITE THE PRECIOUSSSS! But I can't. Even though I've got the end figured out. R&J needs to be finished first. I have people who want to read it.

We won't talk about what I'm doing with the penname stuff. Needless to say, he has some cool stuff in the works, but we won't talk about it here. Because this is for my YA, etc. writing and not for the more adult themes that he works on.


2. How does my work differ from others in my genre?
Hate Jacket is dark. Yes, there is dark YA out there. I think HJ is different because the main character is A) male and B) not an alpha male. He's a Beta at best. Really, he's angry, depressed, and abused. He's a victim and he has to stand up and stop being a victim before he can take control of his life and move forward. It deals with a lot of issues that I don't think get mentioned much in YA, especially from a male's perspective. Usually these types of books center on a girl.

3. Why do I write what I write?
Honestly, I wanted to be a scifi/fantasy writer. Unfortunately, my brain has decided it has an easier time writing stories about real world stuff. I have some scifi/fantasy story ideas (R&J being one), but I seriously struggle with them. Not sure why. I used to read SF/F exclusively growing up.

4. How does my writing process work. 
It's supposed to work? Wait. Did I miss something here?

Seriously? I'm a quasi-pantser. I write and then outline later. To some degree my brain wants to figure out the characters a bit first. However, I have learned a lot from writing Hate Jacket under the mentorship of Nicole Rescinti. One of them is that I think I can outline. Or at least, outline in the way that makes sense to me. I know I'll never do a point by point outline. It's not how my brain works. How it works is to write a couple sentences for each chapter as I go. However, if I can channel that before I start writing, I might be able to maybe avoid getting stuck like I have with R&J.

Now for my #writemotivation goals
Grad School

1. Finish my LibGuide (Due April 11) YES! You can see it here.
2. Finish up my reflection journal. Haven't finished this.

Writing

1. Finish revisions of the first half of HJ. Almost done.
2. Stop getting anymore cool ideas for revising HJ. Thankfully, no. I think this is done. I do need to stop getting ideas for Something Beautiful though.
3. Cheer on my #writemotivation buddies. I've done some of this. Need more and visit some blogs.
4. BLOG (I'm so bad about this). Ack! So bad! But I'm getting there.
5. Read my beta reading that I've been putting off. I am doing this!

'Till Next Time

Thursday's Children: Inspired by Old Time Radio Drama

Starting a new novel is a little intimidating. Especially after the intensity of Hate Jacket. To be honest, I'm flailing and procrastinating. I'm sure this is normal. Not only did I finish it, I participated in Pitmad, and sent my baby off to be (hopefully) accepted. We'll see.

So, in attempt to distract myself from all the negative thoughts floating in my head, I need to write something. Last week, I talked about the silly idea I was playing with. I'm not writing it right now. Silly stuff is hard for me to write (despite being a super-goofball on twitter).

The reality is I need something serious to write. I want to write silly, but it isn't as easy for me as it is for some. Yes, my stories can have humor, but as a whole, they seem to have some dark elements in them.

The exception being Sir Grumpsalot that was recently published in Veux Magazine, Issue 11 (page 32-33). Seriously, it's cute and the magazine did a wonderful job with it. Serious props go out to Ada Adams and the other editors.

So, back to your regularly scheduled blog post.

That's right.

I'm flailing.

Ok. I have an idea. It started as a dream, but is morphing into something awesome. One of my inspirations is the old radio show, The Shadow. I was first introduced to them in a drama class in 8th grade. They were fabulous and so well done (for that era). I did some research on it and didn't realize that the guy who wrote it did so for 20 years.

Anyway, my main character has the ability to see a persons darkest desires/wants/fears, etc. Basically all the bad stuff people hide behind closed doors in their heads. She doesn't like this ability because she can't control it. She looks into a person's eyes and she sees it. What she sees doesn't go away.

I've been doing a lot of research on this in the hopes that I'll find some mythos behind it. As of yet, I haven't found anything. Which is weird, because I would think someone would have had this myth somewhere.

The end result is that I need to create my own. I don't want to link too directly to the Shadow because of it's long history and I don't want to interfere with it. So, no, her great great great uncle was not the guy the radio show was based on. Not gonna happen.

What I do know for certain is that this will be a Dual POV. The MC is going to be around 19-20, so it falls under the "New Adult"/"Adult" category (depending on your preference). Not sure if there are going to be romantic elements or not yet. It's still early, but I do have the first two chapters sketched out in my head.

'Till Next Time