Shutting Down

I am officially shutting this blog down for good. If you want to find me, I am now blogging under the name I plan to publish under - Josi Springs. Hopefully I'll see some of you there.

Editing and Interviews

Like I mentioned in my last post, I am trying the highlighting method of editing that I learned about from Yuna. I really like it. It moves fairly fast and makes it easy to pinpoint problem areas. Of course the actual rewriting hasn't happened yet, but it will.



Here is what the first few pages of the first chapter look like.



The different colors of highlighting have different meanings. One for stuff that needs to come out entirely; one for stuff to keep as is (at least for now); one for stuff that definitely needs fixing; one for stuff I inputed while going through it; and one for notes to myself about what needs to be put in in a certain spot. Hopefully this will make rewriting much easier to do.

One thing I'm hoping to do that will (maybe?) help with the rewrites is character interviews with a few of the characters from CS. I just don't feel that I really have a handle on any of the characters except for Cassie, Tom, Ricky, Abby and Helen. That leaves Jack, Jake (am thinking of changing his name entirely), Luke, Frank and Lloyd.

Huh. Just noticed that all the characters except for Cassie, Abby and Helen are all male. I wonder why?

But regardless, I need to do the character interviews and will be doing them both here and on CC. So if you have any questions you can think of for the characters, please stop by and ask away.

Update

Well, things have settled down some. Or at least hit a lull. So I've been thinking of trying to edit Cassandra's Secrets some more.

I spent some time yesterday and today doing highlight editing (a different color each for keep, delete, change, etc.) that I picked up from reading my friend Yuna's blog (though I can't figure out how she gets the screen image on there). I was happy to see a significant amount of my "keep" color, though there was still plenty of the others. Trust me.

The other thing I spent time on the past two days was helping a friend with his homework assignment - to create a serial killer. It was such fun!

He had a basic idea of his killer, but for this assignment, he had to have everything - just like when a writer creates a character for a story. We need to know when he was born, where, who his parents were, what his upbringing was, what significant events happened to him, etc. Well, even though he had an idea, he had none of that info thought out.

So how did I help him, you ask? Easy. I conducted a character interview with him as the serial killer. When that didn't work too well, we switched it around and he asked me the questions which I answered. Is it any wonder that the killer turned from a landscaper who chops up hookers but doesn't know why to a priest who humanely kills prostitutes in an effort to save them the pain and suffering their lives cause them?

We got the entire background and wrote it all up for him so he could use it to write his paper. I'm almost thinking I need to take that class next semester just so I can do that assignment on my own :)

That's it for now, but I'll keep you updated when I can.

Time For Goodbyes

As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to be shutting the blog down. I just don't have the time anymore between work, school, kids, writing and attempting to have at least 5 minutes alone each day.

If and when things settle down (or I get a book deal), I'll post again, but not until.

Update

Yes, I am doing the Snoopy happy dance :)

Why you ask? Easy. Both Twin Magic and Cassandra's Secrets rewrites have both hit over 10,000 words!!

Okay, so it doesn't take much to make me happy these days, but shouldn't we find our joy where we can? (No, I promise this isn't turning philosophical.)

To me, 10k (and it's multiples) has always been a bit of a milestone. I think it comes from when I did NaNoWriMo. One way to keep motivation up is to reward yourself every so often. I chose to give myself those rewards at the 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k and 50k marks.

So even though nano has been over for 8 months and won't start again for 3, those numbers still represent something to me. This morning I hit it for CS and I rewarded myself by buying a new secondhand book.

As for Sensory Deprivation, the second chapter is well under way. I think I may have it finished tonight.

I'm cruising, folks!

ADD

Some authors complain about writer's block. I really can't say that I've ever experienced it. In fact, the inside of my head looks more like this:


With more and more book ideas popping up every minute of the day. Most of them, I'll probably never write. Some of them, even if I do write them, won't be sellable.

That doesn't stop me from working on them though. Right now I have about 17 active WIPs that I'm flip flopping back and forth on.

Yep. Seventeen.

See why the post is called ADD? I (and some other writers I know) am convinced I have it, but only in relation to my writing. No matter how much I love a project, no matter how strongly I believe that it might be the first novel I get published, I can not settle and work on just one at a time.

Right now I have two WIPs in rewrite stage - Twin Magic and Cassandra's Secrets. Now that's understandable to me. I despise editing/rewriting. So I can't do too much at a time.

I'm also working on a bunch of first drafts. These are the ones that have me wondering. I'm not sure I'm ever going to finish them.

Why?

Because they're taking so long. The rough draft of TM took me only 1 week to complete. CS took a little less than two. Most of the ones I'm working on now have been stagnating for months. I'll add a few sentences here or there, maybe a page, but that's it.

My first day writing TM, I churned out almost 11,000 words in 24 hours. That's a major amount considering I'm not the fastest typer since I only have one hand. And I had all the kids home and I was going to school myself.

With CS, the first week went slowly and I only got about 3,000 done. Then my friend Chelle and I spent a day doing word races. 20 minutes racing then 10 minutes break. We kept that schedule going for about 7 or 8 hours. A full weekend like that and the rough draft was almost done.

The Newest Project

I mentioned in one of my posts about the WIP with a blind girl as the MC. Well, it turns out it's a teen romance (that sure wasn't the plan orginally!), but also a book about self-realization for the hero and heroine.

Unlike most romances, I'm not going for the alpha male as the hero. Nope, he's strictly beta material. I think it'll work though. Here's a little snippet to give you a look at Vince. (Remember this is a very rough draft.)

His breath caught in his lungs. She was beautiful. The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Her hair had so many colors in it, he couldn’t think what to call it, but it hung in soft curls down to the middle of her back. What little of her face that he could see was tanned. He wondered if she used a tanning bed or had just moved here from some sunny state.

Vince let his gaze travel down her body and grinned. She wasn’t some stick figure like most of the girls at Chriswell Prep. She had curves, reminding him of the actresses in the old black and white movies his family watched together every Saturday night.

The woman next to her looked enough like her, so he guessed it was her mother. What the hell? he thought. No teenager lets their mom walk them to class.

The heads of some of his classmates moved, opening a space so he could see the huge, black German Shepherd standing next to the girl. Something was wrong with her. The handle and harness looked like those he’d seen on service animals before. And that’s the only reason Principal Garreth would let an animal on school grounds.

He saw Ms. Janney and the mother step back into the hall, but his eyes never left the girl. She looked . . . lost, standing there all alone, not sure where to go. Her face lifted then and Vince knew in an instant that she was blind and the Shepherd was a seeing eye dog. Her eyes were a dark blue, but with a hazy film covering them.

Ms. Janney strode back into the room alone, her thin lips pressed together so tightly they practically disappeared. Not a good sign at all. Vince peeked at the other students, who were whispering amongst themselves.

She clapped her hands once, loudly. “Class, please say hello to our new student, Brooke Matthias. Pick any empty seat and get settled so we may begin.”

Brooke stood in the doorway looking confused. Vince couldn’t believe the teacher’d done that to her. How was she supposed to pick an empty seat when she couldn’t see them? He opened his mouth to mention it, closing it again without speaking when she whispered to her dog.

The dog began to move slowly down the aisle between the desks. Each step was carefully placed to lead the girl around the backpacks, purses and legs sticking out all over.

Two of his soccer buddies, Jarod and Don spoke quietly as pointed at her as she neared them. The dog took a step forward into the open aisle next to Jarod’s desk, Brooke following right on her heels.So fast that Vince hadn’t even realized what was happening, Jarod stuck his foot out and tripped her. Brooke fell to the ground, a loud crack echoing in the room as her head hit the floor. Jarod tucked his leg back under the desk and hi-fived Don.

His classmates snickered and pointed, some laughed out loud, but no one moved to help her. Vince half rose from his seat, but a glare from Jarod stopped him. Not so long ago, he’d been the new kid. An ugly nerd who no one wanted to know. Without soccer and Jarod absorbing him into his group of friends, Vince would still be the lonely outsider he’d been at his last school. If keeping quiet was the price he had to pay for that friendship and popularity, he’d keep his mouth locked tight.

He switched on his iPod and let the classroom disappear as Harry Dresden dragged him into Chicago and the supernatural happenings there. He’d deal with his conscience later.

This new WIP is tentatively called Sensory Deprivation, but I'm not sure that's a good title for a romance. What do you think?

My Turn

You know how sometimes, when there's twins, they have different personalities? Almost opposite?

I'm not talking about good versus evil that you writers do. Just regular stuff. A quiet twin and a loud one. One that always takes a dare and one that never will.

That's the way Sarah wrote me and my twin Maddy. I'm Lizzie Nichols, the main character in one of the book's she's rewriting right now - Twin Magic. She didn't know what to write today, so I'm taking over.

Like I said at the beginning, me and Maddy are opposites. But don't think that means we don't get along. We do. Closer than best friends actually. I read a book called Anne of Green Gables once and Anne uses the phrase "bosom buddies." I think that works for us too.

At least until that witch, Patience, gets to her. Maddy can't help being weaker. It's who she is and I don't hate her for it.

I'm the loud, outgoing, always ready for a fight twin. Maddy . . . isn't. She daydreams and wants to bring home wild dogs to keep as pets. She forgets what's real a lot, so she needs me to take care of her.

I don't do such a good job or Patience would never have gotten her under her spell. I just got . . . obsessed, I guess. We found those journals and the spellbook, and I started playing the "What if?" game.

What if magic was real? What if the body in the cave were really alive, not dead? What if we could do magic?

Next thing I knew, we were trapped. And it was my job to find a way out. I'm the one who looks after Maddy.

That's all I'm going to say or I'll give away the end of the book. Sarah might get mad at that. See y'all next time she can't think of a post.