Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: retail ghostbusting
Mood: Entrepreneurial

One of the odd things about being published is that one ends up spending a lot of time not exactly writing. Currently, I’m setting up one of my characters in her second career.

Surrounded by Supernatural Beasts? Can’t Afford a Professional Exterminator?
Let Ashe Carver, Monster Hunter Extraordinare, Help You Do-It-Yourself!

Has a pesky supernatural infestation affected the quality of your life recently . . . or that of someone close to you? We all know how expensive hiring a professional to clean up that type of problem can be. But you certainly don’t want to put off dealing with the situation until your next payday. Because, let’s face it, the stench and slime aren’t going to get better on their own!

So why not let a qualified, well-respected professional give you tips on handling things yourself? Ashe might have hung up her stakes recently to concentrate on raising her daughter, but she has a wealth of knowledge and experience she’s more than happy to share with intrepid do-it-yourselfers. And all at a mere fraction of the rates she and other professionals charge for handling things themselves.

Whether you’re dealing with goblins, changelings, imps, werewolves, fire demons . . . virtually any supernatural creature, Ashe has the advice you need to kick some serious monster butt. Click here to learn how she recommends you or your friend(s) deal with your own personal hell.

My next official writing project is still in the air, so I’ll leave those details alone for the moment. Let’s talk about ideas and how to flesh them out instead.

I get new ideas for stories all the time. Some of them are way out in left field, some are in a genre I don’t currently write, and some fall apart as soon as I start exploring them. The ideas that survive long enough to develop legs and crawl out of the primordial ooze of creativity are the ones I write down. But even those ideas are bare bones.

So, how do I determine if an idea is worth 400 pages of prose? Everyone has their own method for answering that question, but for me, it comes down to conflict. If the conflict isn’t big enough, the idea dies.

I hammer at the conflict by using a template I call Rolling the Ball. I got the idea for the template from an author who did a workshop for my local RWA chapter, but I can’t credit her, because I don’t remember who it was. My sincere apologies to that author. Anyway, she basically said that a story was built on a series of actions and reactions which could be described as one character rolling the ball to another, then that second character catching the ball and rolling it back. Or, to put it an other way, our characters make judgments, decisions and actions which in turn forces other characters to make judgments, decisions and actions.

Example:
Joe gets a call from his mother saying his sister has been murdered. Joe believes the murderer is most likely his sister’s creepy, drug-dealing boyfriend, and he hops a plane to Witchita to confront the boyfriend. (He rolls the ball.)

The boyfriend swears he loved the sister, even though she’d taken a restraining order out on him, and points the finger at Joe’s stepfather who recently lost his job for having pornography on his computer. (The boyfriend rolls the ball back.)

Once I have a skeleton of an idea, I roll the ball back and forth between my characters, starting with the inciting incident, or the event that tosses my main character’s life into disarray. If I can’t come up with more than a page of escalating conflict between my two main characters, I know the idea is weak. From there, I can explore ways to strengthen the conflict or drop the idea and move onto something fresh.

How do other writers decide whether to pursue an idea? Anyone?

Currently working on: Staying on top of the raspberry and snow pea harvest
Mood: Wondering how many dishes include both raspberries AND snow peas…

So we’re halfway through the year.  (Well, halfway plus a little bit, but I’m always behind.)  This is usually when I pull out my New Year’s Resolutions, laugh hysterically, and reassess.  What are my NEW New Half Year’s Resolutions?

When I look at what I have to get done before the end of the year, the hysteria becomes more pronounced and other living beings in my household find heavy objects to find under.  But the trick is always first things first.  So in honor of this week’s blog topic of “My next project,” I bring you my first task: Announcing the winner of last week’s Ava Gray SKIN GAME giveaway.  Random.org picked:

Spav, who is distracted by Twitter. Aren’t we all?  Congrats, Spav, and thanks to all who commented.

Now, onto the next task…

I’ll be attending RomCon, a new convention for romance readers and writers, in a couple weeks (which, like the end of the year, is coming faster than I anticipate, I know).  I’m very much looking forward to stalking some of my favorite authors, hanging with friends, chatting with readers, and signing books.  If you live in Denver or have friends, family or Facebook acquaintances who live in Denver or anywhere in the Rockies for that matter, come join us!  The giant book fair is open to the public. Details:

RomCon
Crowne Plaza Denver Airport
15500 East 40th Avenue, Denver, CO
Saturday, July 10, Noon Book Fair
Meet Jo Beverley, Christine Feehan, Julia Quinn, Lori Foster, Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh, Carly Phillips, Susan Mallery, Melissa Mayhue, Catherine Anderson, Jodi Thomas and dozens of other fabulous authors [Note from Jessa: You'll see I am not a listed author at this point in my life, but at least I am fabulous] our multi-author booksigning sponsored by Borders. Bring up to 3 books from your own library for your favorite author to sign!

But before I go, I have to finish writing a short story from the world of the Marked Souls.  It’s the possession story of Corvus Valerius.  I’m going to give away limited edition prints of the story at RomCon before I post it to my website.  If you want a copy (when I finally finish it) email your snail mail addy to jessa at jessaslade dot com with the subject line: Corvus.

Writing his story has been harder than I thought it would be.  Okay, all writing is harder for me than I think it will be.  But Corvus’s tale is especially hard because… Well, as soon as I started writing him, he became my hero. 

There’s a saying among writers: Every villain is the hero of his own story.  That’s been true of Corvus through the first two books of the Marked Souls and it’s even more true when we see how he gave in to temptation — and his demon.  What do you think, does evil always believe itself in the right, or sometimes does evil just say, hell yeah I’m evil?

I’m also running a contest/asking a favor/assigning you an enviable task at my personal blog.  I need to find a royalty free picture of Corvus for the cover of the short story.  If somebody finds a shot I can use, she’ll get a signed copy of SEDUCED BY SHADOWS or FORGED OF SHADOWS.  You can read the details here. 

See you (hopefully) in Denver!

STATUS: Writing Chapters Today
MOOD: Determined

HEY! Before you read the following golden words that have spilled forth from my Saturday-inspired-fingertips, be sure to check out Jessa Slade’s post below, for how to win a copy of Ava Gray’s book, SKIN GAME.

As I read through the post by the other Silk & Shadows authors this week, I found so much in common with all of them. ARG! The first draft. Agony. Focus! Nearly impossible!

Years ago, when I first started writing, it wasn’t so difficult. I’d write pages and pages in a sitting, and be so convinced that everything I’d written was clever and interestng and charming. Somewhere along the way, though, I became my biggest critic. When I’m writing, I always have little questions swirling around in my mind: too much plot? Not enough plot? Enough romance? Wait … do the last twenty-three pages I wrote drag? Maybe I should delete them and consider them “brainstorming pages”?

That brings up another difficulty in writing, and that’s the experience of spending a LOT of time with yourself. Your voice, and your thoughts are constantly yammering on when you’re writing, offering helpful hints, encouragement, commentary and criticism. You have to like yourself so you can get through those days when YOU are getting on YOUR every last nerve.

Writers are “internal” people much of the time, staring into a computer screen (another world) with fixed intensity, which can make us sometimes exasperating to people who are “external”. (Like husbands, who try very hard to be patient).

What about you? Are you more of an “internal” person or an “external” person?

From Jessa:  Today we have Elizabeth Darvill with us.  I met Elizabeth at the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle WA before she sold.  So I can say “I knew her when”!  Even then, she was walking the talk — and dressing the part!  Now her first book LOVE IN A TIME OF STEAM comes out July 15 and is available for preorder here.  Congratulations, Elizabeth!

Hello! I am so pleased to be here at Silk and Shadows! I was trying to think of something profound today….but alas that is just not my style….so I thought I would tell you a little confession. It is something I like to do…in public….

I ADORE writing my sex scenes in public places! Yes, it is a bit juvenile, but it makes it decadently naughty and never fails to inspire! I highly suggest it if you are dreading a sex scene or are just feeling as if it doesn’t have enough spark. It is very much like any relationship. You have to be a little juvenile and naughty and try new things to keep the energy and passion alive. So doing it at your desk, table, couch wherever you “normally” write those steamy pages, day after day, will get a little monotonous. So, go to a coffee shop, go to the library, sometimes doing it while a nice clean activity(church, chess club, etc) is happening at the table next to you, makes it extra fun! Be creative! Secretly knowing you are writing steamy action while others mill about is a thrill. Do it…I dare you!

Comment with ways you like to write (Editor’s note: Or read!) your sex scenes! One commenter will win a fun promo packet!

Have a lovely, naughty day!

~Elizabeth

Love in a Time of Steam – Blurb

Ashlyn hasn’t seen Gray her former lover in five long years. Not since the day he
believed her to be a traitor to the military cause they both served.

Now as the volatile nature of their planet is reaching a fevered pitch, and the war
over water to run their steam-powered technology is threatening all beings, she must face him once more.

Despite her intense hatred towards Gray, Ashlyn can’t let the father of her child
be murdered by General Dagnus, the leader of the opposing army. Risking her life, Ashlyn lays everything on the line to save the man that betrayed her once. As they
work together to survive, will they be able to rekindle the passion they once shared?

The writing task I always put off is Chapter 3.

Chapter 1 is easy. It’s a fresh idea, a fresh start, a fling with some new characters. It’s like sneaking out of your bedroom window at night and creeping off for some unauthorized fun. It’s the attraction of the unknown, crammed with possibilities.

Chapter 2 is the counterpoint, a response, the chance to provide the answering viewpoint, the villain’s machinations, or the Big Thing that raises the stakes to a nerve-shattering pitch.

Chapter 3 is where the author has to get past the fanfare and start providing actual story. If the fireworks in the first two chapters were nothing but a lot of light and sound, this is where the shaky foundation becomes apparent. Cue sound of fizzling. Cue sound of author whistling as they stroll away, pretending they didn’t like that dumb story anyway.

I hate chapter 3. If we make it past that danger point, chapter 5 is nearly as bad, because that’s where the author has to have another trick in her bag to crank up the volume. It has to be something fresh that the reader hasn’t seen coming, yet not so outlandish that your editor suspects you’re using a plotting version of Mr. Potato Head.

I love chapter 10, because if I make it that far I know my book has a chance to survive infancy. Nevertheless, there are still dangerous waters ahead. I have a tendency to suddenly start hallucinating around chapter 13 that I have far too many pages to fill, and that I’d better drag in a third and fourth plot just to fill it up—which is how I have been known to exceed my allotted word count by, oh, 60,000 words. Sagging middles have never been my literary foe. Knowing when to back away from the keyboard is.

If I can avoid the “gee, I guess I’d better throw in a revolt by the trolls” trap, I finish in good order. The second half of the book will go twice as fast as the first, because all my lovely setup is unwinding just like it’s supposed to. Biff! Bam! Dragons! Holy batwings, Dracula!

The problem is that I have to get past chapter 3 to get there. All the decisions are yet to be made. All the slog up the hill of rising tension has yet to begin. Chapter 3 is what tests not just your inspiration, but your resolve, your toolkit, and your devious plan. It’s where the real authors come out to play, fully prepared to make their characters’ lives sheer hell. Hear us roar!

Or mew. Sometimes ideas aren’t quite ready for the world. After all, who doesn’t have a few started-but-never-got-traction projects stored away on hard drives, in closets, or in craft cupboards?

The hardest part of writing—for me—is the first draft. Editing stuff I’ve already written is so much easier than getting the story down in the first place.

I don’t think that’s surprising. The first draft of any story requires a huge investment in creative brain power. It not only draws on my smarts (from a plotting perspective), it draws on my emotions. In order to capture the story properly, I need to FEEL it.

When all goes right, I end the day on a satisfied but weary note. When it wrong, I tend to avoid the computer or avoid the manuscript by hanging out on social network sites and playing computer games. Not productive. And usually guilt-inducing. So, I do several things to keep myself moving forward:

1. Plan my day to include several breaks. It’s hard work to be ‘on’ for hours at a time. So, I schedule downtime. But I use an alarm clock to remind myself when it’s time to get back to work. If I don’t, I find myself goofing off when I should be writing. Ooops.

2. Turn off the internet. I actually have an old computer unplugged from the internet, and when I’m in the throes of draft one, I work there. There’s no wireless connectivity in the machine, so it’s truly cut off from the rest of the world. Conveniently, that computer also has no games on it except a very basic solitaire game.

3. Reward myself. I set daily goals, and when I make those goals, I give myself a little treat. It can be anything from a cup of Starbucks to watching a DVD. And, of course, the best reward is the finished manuscript. The feeling you get when you type THE END is incredible.

4. Keep a visual progress bar posted near my monitor. This works amazingly well for me. Watching the green bar edge closer and closer to the finish line stirs my competitive instincts and provides more satisfaction than cold, sterile page numbers. It also helps me with pacing, because I know where I am in the story at all times.

My competitive instincts were honed as a speed swimmer in my youth. I wasn’t Michael Phelps, but I competed in several regional and national events. If there’s even a whiff of competition in the game, I’m keen and eager. I can’t help but compare my progress bar on my current manuscript to the progress I made on previous books. I hate to lose…even to myself.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to work this same kind of magic on housework…laundry is my nemesis. I use it as inspiration for the evil monsters in my books: It sucks my energy every time I look at it, it doubles in size whenever my back is turned, and it instantly springs back to life every time I think I’ve slain it.

What’s your least favorite household chore?

Currently working on: A free-read short story from the Marked Souls
Mood: Murderous (in the storyworld, not real life!)

Writers write.

It’s one of those sayings that frustrated writers lob at each other like a water balloon full of lemon juice and razor blades.

But sometimes it isn’t always that easy.  (Kind of like that metaphor.) 

Writers write. 
Writers try to write. 
Writers at least sit at their computers.
Writers at least sit at their computers with their fingers on the keyboard.
Okay, writers at least blog.

The hardest part of writing, for me, is focus.  When I write, distractions are like… like the ants that are currently marching around my office window in search of… I really can’t tell.  Hold on while I go look…

Apparently the ants want Monster Girl’s mostly-chewed cow thigh bone.  This bone has been in my office for nigh onto two years now, along with enough other pieces of cow to reanimate most of a bovine, given enough electricity and mad cackling.  Although if I count correctly, this particular cow would have five legs.  Whatever.  (I do remove the bones when we have houseguests, because nobody likes to sleep on an inflatable twin mattress in an abattoir.)  Why the ants would want this bone now…  Probably they are distracting me from something else they really want.  Like my bucket of cookie dough.

Speaking of distractions, see how easy it was to get distracted from this post on the hardest part of writing?

(In case you were curious, the ants are odorous house ants.  (Tapinoma sessile. Subfamily: Dolichodorinae.  I Googled it just for you.)  They earned this name from the scent of rotton coconuts they emit when crushed by a wildly wielded cow thigh bone.  Or, obviously, any other blunt object.  This infestation does not indicate that I’m a failure at housekeeping (although I am).  All of Portland is built on a giant anthill.)

Aside from the ants, one of my most common distractions is, not surprisingly, books.  I have a lot of books around me.   A lot of good books.  It’s a hazard of the job.  A lot of good books within arm’s reach.  Which is a hazard of a small office.

Why, look, this good book just fell into my hand.  It’s a signed copy of the first book in Ava Gray’s Skin series, SKIN GAME.  The second book, SKIN TIGHT, came out this month, and you do NOT want to be left behind.

SKIN GAME starts like this:

Kyra held the guy’s balls in the palm of her hand. Literally.

Just for a second as she brushed by him, but it was enough. His eyes widened, and she knew he took the touch as a sign he’d get lucky after he won her last hundred bucks. The crumpled bill lay underneath his, weighted by a cube of pool chalk.

Poor, stupid mark.

See, THAT is why I was distracted.  Leave a comment about what distracts you most often and you’ll have a chance to win the signed copy of SKIN GAME.

Now what was I… Right, distractions. 

I first learned about writing in flow (a focused — emphasis is mine –timeless state where creativity comes “easily”) from reading Susan K. Perry’s WRITING IN FLOW.  Perry writes a creativity blog for Psychology Today online.  I sometimes go read that when I’m feeling distracted.

The book reads like a fairy tale to me, a tale of princesses whose words fall from their fingertips like rose petals and diamonds.  I even love the word “flow,” the way it sounds and the way it looks.  Flow…  Flooowww. 

I’m easily distracted.

Back to the ants.  These are actually scout ants.  So they do a lot of backtracking and wandering in circles and…  Seem familiar?  Yeah, to me too.  Can’t quite place it though…

You know who would like my ants?  Mark Moffett, called the Indiana Jones of entomology by the National Geographic Society.  Who wouldn’t want Indy to come steal all the ants in her office?  I heard Moffett interviewed on NPR (he’s pimping a new book ADVENTURES AMONG ANTS) and his ants are way cooler (also meaner, bigger and did I mention meaner) than my ants, and also more focused.  They can skeletonize large dead things, like cows, which would no doubt impress Monster Girl.

Sadly, I don’t have a signed copy of Moffett’s ant book to give away, but remember to leave a comment for SKIN GAME.

So anyway, it’s not that I’m always distracted, it’s just that

Summertime can be when I get my best writing done. I think this is a hangover from being in school—I expect to have more time and energy to spare, so I associate warm nights and hanging out in the garden with creative thought and, more specifically, experimental writing.

When I was in university, my focus was on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century English poets, aka the Byronic crowd. One of their buddies was a novelist named Matthew “Monk” Lewis, who wrote what we’d now call horror fiction. One summer I applied myself to his works. Mostly I was fascinated by the claim that he had locked himself up for a long weekend with a case of wine and deli take-out and written the first draft of The Monk. It’s a substantial pile o’ prose (and not a bad read, if you like gothic). Me, I would take a long weekend to write a synopsis, and only if I were stone cold sober.

Nonetheless, the result of my Monk-ish fascination resulted in a complete manuscript written that summer. Rereading it now, I wish I had the excuse of alcohol abuse for the sword-waving histrionics contained therein. One takes things far too seriously at that age.

Now, since what I write is mostly about brooding monster guys (thanks so much, Mr. Lewis), my summer escapes tend to be light and fluffy adventure stories. I actually started writing one, just to clear the dust and spiderwebs of the Castle out of my soul for a bit. I’ll bet you a quarter that if all I ever wrote was light and fluffy, I’d be looking for something dark and broody. That’s just the way holidays work—we want the opposite of our normal lives so that we can go back and appreciate what we have day to day.

On a parallel note, I’m leaving the chilly northern rainforest (okay, it’s sunny and gorgeous out, but go with me here) for the tropical steam of Orlando in July. If that’s not a reversal of my typical habitat, well, vampires don’t have coffin hair in the morning.

Okay, all you paranormal readers—what bookshelf do you visit to change things up?

Summer is full of hot sun, vivid visuals, boisterous noises, mouth-watering tastes, and heavenly scents. I love the lush gardens, the sounds of kids giggling and shrieking in the water park, and the smell of hot dust lifting off the pavement with every fat drop of rain from a summer shower. I adore fresh fruit, cold ice cream, and the feel of beach sand under my bare feet.

I write early in the morning and in the winter it’s usually dark and cold when I get up. Now, as we near the summer solstice, the sun is already beginning to rise when I roll out of bed. The horizon is a lovely shade of periwinkle with a hint of gold.

Summer is good for me as a writer. It reminds me that life is not just seen, it is experienced on a host of different levels. My windows are open every moment they can be. The breeze tugs at my curtains, filling my office with the romantic scent of blooming tea roses and the intermittent squawk of mallard ducks in the pond. It’s a constant reminder to invoke the five senses as I write.

Sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste.

Sometimes I forget that my characters experience life on those levels, too. I’m so busy trying to get the images I see in my mind onto the written page that I forget those all important details that make a scene come alive.

Not during the summer, though.

My favorite summer sensory memory is learning to sail in Summerside harbor when I was thirteen: the sun beating down from a clear blue sky, the seagulls screaming overhead, the wooden bench of the skiff grinding into my butt with every wave, the braided rope of the halyard rasping in my hands, the wind stinging on my cheeks, the awkward stuffing of my life jacket pressing on my neck, and then the sudden mouthful of cold, salty water as a gust catches my sails, tips my little boat and I fall into the sea.

Anyone else have a favorite memory of summer they want to share?