The Longer I Write, The More I Trust The Less Concrete Stuff

My first year of writing was less about writing and more about finding books telling me how to write. The second year was less about writing and more learning how to write well. The first half of the third year I had a complete overdose on How To Write in any form and couldn't write a word because it was all wrong, wrong, wrong. The second half of the third year I had trouble typing because I had my middle finger up to the rules, but by goodness I got some words down.

From that point on I wrote and wrote and wrote and worried less about doing it right during the first draft. I came to grips about the fact I wasn't one of those writers who spits out a ready to go first draft. Those writers do exist. Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of them, but she writes and rewrites each word until they shine and then goes on. Her way would drive me insane and nothing would ever get done.

And the thing is by year seven I still can't spit out a ready to go first draft. That first draft can drag your soul out of your body and do horrible things to it. The book I just contracted was the worse thing I'd ever written. Yeah, it had heart and magic in that first draft (which is the one thing you want your first draft to have if nothing else) but on a basic writing level it was three day old roadkill. It was a wretched, wretched beast of words.

But, I repeat, what it had was heart and magic. That's what I trust with my writing now. I know if I managed to capture that heart and magic, I can fix the story. I can re-write a sentence until my fingers bleed on the keyboard, but if there ain't no heart or magic it's wasted time. Badly written sentences can be fixed, but a heartless dead story is well, dead. It takes way more work to do CPR on it than to write a grammatically correct sentence. This I know. At least, it's true for me. Some people may have that talent. Unfortunately I'm not one of them.

You gotta know what you are capable of so you can write better period. This will change, for sure. But knowing is half the battle.  

A Critique of "Why Critique Groups Must Die"

I thoroughly enjoy Red Pen's posts. He takes old stodgy beliefs and blow them to smithereens for kicks and giggles. How can you not like a guy like that? And recently he wrote this blog post: Why Critique Groups Must Die.

For the first time I thought, I don't agree. Have never agreed that all a writer needed was their editor or a editor. I'm not saying one should write by committee, that's even more insane. You can end up with a hot mess of a book that once had a soul and now pleases everyone. Not in a good way, but in a meh it didn't piss me off nor do I remember what happened kind of way. Trust me, it's harder to put magic back into a book than to make the hero less of an asshole. This is a scientific fact.

Then again, he's right, which is why I love his posts. He can be both in the same span of time. A writer should have a limited amount of people who vet the book. And there are two important things a writer should keep in mind. The first is before the writer hits send they should know the kind of critique they're getting. If I want to know if my story is working as a whole I won't send it to the person who's strength is line editing. And vice versa. And before a writer really hits send(to an editor), someone else should have read the monster they created to make sure it's readable and that it growls only in the parts it's supposed to.

So by the end of the post, I still ended up agreeing with him. Dammit.

Happy Great Delirious News To Announce

I've been sitting on some fan-tab-bulous news for close to a month. You don't know how hard it is for me to keep something like this bottled up. Just to alleviate some of the pressure I'd approach strangers on the street and tell them. And then giggle like a loon. So who would they tell? No one.

 But now I can tell the world. *bounce* Entangled Publishing has offered me a contract to publish (tentatively titled) Romancing the Hammock. My contemporary romance about a chick who gets stranded and the guy who comes to her rescue. I'll come up with a better blurb later. What's important this book that I love oh so deliriously is going to be published. CELEBRATE with me in the comments.

Now I've got a whole lot more people to tell. *bounce* Like everyone in this known universe.

The In Depth Behind The Scenes Secret Handshake Surefire Way To Plotting

In case you were actually looking for what I promised in the blog title...I'm sorry. You should know most of what spews from my keyboard is said tongue in cheek. But like most jokes, it does hold some truth. A good 80 percent of my plotting happens all in my head. Usually while listening to music.

So, for a moment, imagine a kitchen. A mother and daughter standing side by side. The mother is on her laptop. Daughter hands mother a CD and asks to import it to iTunes. Mother looks at artist and shrugs. He's not that annoying, she'll gladly add him to her account. Mom actually likes one of this artist's songs. She listens to the album. One song, right away, strikes a cord. No pun intended.

See this is how it all starts with me. But to be fair, the character that immediately came to mind has been on the back burner for a few years. He's a charmer. I love charmers. 9 times out of 10 people who are all carefree and all smiles and jokes have something dark and deep buried in their past. They've learned, or rather they prefer to take life and all it's downfalls with a laugh. A whiff of a deep, dark secret and a tortured past...that's crack to a writer.

And this peppy, full of cheek and conflicting lyrics comes on and immediately I see this character's face. I can see him full of cheek and dark secrets in a tuxedo. Not immaculate by any means. He's ditched the coat, rolled up the sleeves and loosened the bow tie. And he's dancing to this song that's all about making serious decisions on a whim. In fact, making a decision that really avoids the heart of the matter.

My mind imagines him dancing, but who is his partner? What women would look at him and go he's perfect. No woman in her right mind would. Unless on the surface he's exactly what she's looking for--an obvious dumb decision. Someone who isn't looking for something serious, because if she was, the woman wouldn't look twice at the hero.

At this point, I go YES!!!!!! That's not a joke. I literally sat up, while listening to this song and said, YES!!!!!!

This is the secret handshake, ideas come out of nowhere. Ideas snowball and then you've got plot. And for me when I've got plot, I've got character.

What was the song that started this whole thing?

Yeah. No idea why it's THIS song, but I'm listening to it. I can still see him dancing with her. And the story is playing out in my mind. Plot. I haz it.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

I should be shamed to say this next part, but I think it speaks well of the author's ability to step out of his own story and let the story live on its own. The confession? It wasn't until this past year that I learned the author of Sherlock Holmes' name. In case you don't know it either, Sir Arthur Doyle. Sherlock is epic. So epic I want to say most detectives now are based on the frame work of this character. (House, Cal Lightman, Spencer, Kinsey Milhoune, Dresden.) Even though the stories are told from Watson's POV, it's Holmes that gets the limelight.

Yet, I have to say, this series I'm watching the actor, Jeremy Brett, has brought Holmes to life. And I love this actor's portrayal because he does Character. Yes, with a big C. A gesture of a hand. The way he slips in wonderful humor into the dialogue that whips right by you. (Ok. Ok. The writers deserve a crapload of accolades too. A crapton.)

And I've watched a lot of Holmes and stopped watching just as quickly. (Aside from Downey Jr. who is just wonderful.) Still he's the Holmes I'd rather watch, because when I watch him act it doesn't feel like acting.

Which, brings me to my point. I want to write stories where I'm no where to be found. Although it's blasphemous to say, I'd rather readers remember my story than my name.

Ok. I'm off to watch more Sherlock Holmes.

The Modern Romance: The Key to Writing One

Love and Other Drugs is, IMHO, one of the best romantic movies I've seen in the past decade. There are others, but this movie...as soon as the ending credits came on the screen I wanted to re-watch the movie. It was that good to me. I think to a certain extent Hollywood has taken romantic comedy and stabbed it repeatedly in the heart with shitty movies. But I think the bigger issue is that once you slap a label on something people believe the story must fit a formula. They must cram all those key and identifiable elements into that formula so people aren't sitting there confused about what they are reading or watching. They (whether it's movie moguls, editors, agents, writers, etc.) forget that good story trumps all. Easily identifiable elements of genre do not make story. And worse, I often see those elements used to SELL a story is used to TELL a story.

That last is key. You can say I have an Alpha male and spunky heroine. This is why you should buy this book/movie. There's a huge difference when you tell a story of a Alpha male and spunky heroine. Why are they who they are? How do they fall in love? Why do they fall in love? If you stripped them of Alpha and Spunky, what stands in the way of the HEA? That's the story.

Which, is why I'm going to say Love and Other Drugs is a modern romance. The marketable element that is familiar within romance is I don't want to love YOU, in the form of Friends with Benefits. The writer is smart and he puts it in a fresh and none too familiar backdrop of Pharmaceutics. The heroine has Parkinsons. It creates the meet cute. Because of her disease she really doesn't want to settle down. She doesn't want to have THAT type of conversation, much less relationship. He's so not ready to settle down. Apparently one has to have charm to sell drugs. 0_o There is tons of sex. But when you have sex like they have sex you get to know someone. Your life gets entangled. So does your emotions. The movie is marketable. But the story is about what happens when you fall in love when you sure as shit don't want to fall in love. It takes that selling point and shows character, tells a story.

So, why am I calling it the Modern Romance? Much less, one of the best I've seen this decade? Because I think this movie best encapsulates what it means for people to fall in love. When Harry Met Sally was made in the late 80s. Pieces of that movie definitely has a time stamp on it. Yet, I still consider this a modern romance. The selling point is Friends to Lovers. If you've sat down and watched this movie you know it's about Harry, a man who has preconceived ideas about women and love, falling for a women, Sally, who has completely different ideas about men and love. For me, that will always be modern--people. Not gimmicks or concepts or marketable elements. People. Write a story about two people falling in love and you can't go wrong. You'll end up with a Modern Romance.

Because Caring Is Sharing

Seen this picture on one of the forums I'm on. 

That is all.