Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Carolyn Character Meld is Tricky
I'm still in the middle of pulling an excess character out of the Work in Progress (WIP). I've done three chapters, and had to stop at the last one because it's late and this chapter will be the most work. Some interesting stuff happened and also, quite happily, I've solved the problem of the disappearing hero. Tip: when your hero is unconscious for a chapter and a half, this is bad. Especially when those are the chapters you were thinking would be hot.
::sigh:: A couple of years ago the
spectacular Mary Balogh was on a list I was on and she said she'd been told never to have her hero and heroine apart for more than 5 pages. Probably in a longer work you could get away with a few more pages, but not many. I've found I have fewer boring passages when I try to follow that advice. So, 15 pages or so of an unconscious hero is bad. Very bad indeed.
Anyway, today was a boring day except for when I was watching Buffy and doing my character-ectomy some of which I did in the car at lunch time.
My editor emailed me to let me know the page proofs for
My Wicked Enemy should be arriving tomorrow. I'm kind of excited to read it.
This is Carolyn ignoring the unpleasant fretting in her head, hey it'll only cost me thousands of dollars to re-write the whole book! I have a day off Friday, and Monday is a holiday so, I have a 4 day weekend coming up. Yippee!
Still obsessed with Spike, though.
Labels: Buffy, My Wicked Enemy, Spike, writing, Xia
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Monday, February 11, 2008
Today's Subject: Obsession
Today as I was noodling on about something non-writing related, the writing portion of my head was obsessing about Xia. Major breakthrough involving some forward motion, as in now I have some. It's nice to know where to go from here. Also I'm deleting my first character from the story and folding him into another one. Yay! Bloody carnage, agreed, but this is going to be way better. My stories seem to start out with multiple personalities -- 2 or more characters playing the same role/function. I am
::sigh:: not one of those writers who easily handles a cast of dozens. A dozen makes my head spin. Heck, half a dozen is uncomfortable. So, obsessing was good to me today.
Tonight, The Darling Boy and I watched the last three episodes of Buffy, Season Six. Which brings me to my obsession
du jour.
The episode ends with Spike having endured horrific trials in an attempt to return to his original bad and evil vampire self.
Make me what I was originally so Buffy gets whats she deserves, he says, all mean and vampire-nasty. Uh-huh. And that's exactly what happens, because, who doesn't deserve a hottie like Spike?
Thank goodness I have it all on DVD, because I don't think I'd make it waiting for TV time to get me to season 7.
Off to remove a character and then have my hero demon-napped. Or is it mage-napped?
Labels: Buffy, Spike, writing, Xia
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Sunday, February 10, 2008
Catching up
Had to do some day job stuff this morning. Yuck. Took longer than it should have due to an issue that was out of my control. But all's well and I'm home now. Xia has been going very slowly lately. I need to make up some words today. But I also have a lot of RITA books to read.
Sigh. On the good side, despite the slow going, the ideas have been good. I have 41K words now and things are starting to gel. I'm trying to think of something amusing or interesting to say here, but no go. So! instead of that I'll talk about a growing obsession of mine.
Spike
Oh, my gosh. As perhaps you know, if you read here from time to time, my xmas present to myself was Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. So, the character Spike is a bad boy vamp who's pretty dang hunky. Plus, there are scenes in which he has very little clothing on and it's quite clear he keeps up a regular workout without overdoing it. And yes, I should be hanging my head in sexist shame for this, but I'm not. It's finally our turn!
Labels: Buffy, Scandal writing, Spike, Xia
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Write Stuff Plus Monsters
Sigh.This is the hardest part for me... early on when the core of the book isn't established, yet I know what I want it to be. Sometimes the words just aren't there, and sometimes the words that are there are the wrong ones.
Double Sigh. Times like this I'd rather do
anything than write the right words.
So, one of tonight's episodes of Buffy was
Fool for Love which I'd noticed made Joss Whedon's top 10 list of episodes. For about half the show I was wondering why. And then it happened. Oh. My. Gosh. I am now a Joss Whedon Fan Girl. Spike is a very bad vampire, just really bad. He seriously hates Buffy yet has come to realize he loves her. Even though (because of?) he wants desperately to kill her. Really. He's let at least part of his secret out and she delivers a resounding and rather heartless slap down. He is determined to kill her and sets out to do so. He goes to her house, ready to do the deed. Only she's sitting on the front steps by herself, crying. (Because of some terrible and devastating news about a family member). He has all the opportunity in the world to kill her. But instead, he asks "What's wrong?" Shot of her tear stained face... She doesn't want to talk about it. She's plainly devastated. "Is there anything I can do?" he asks and you can tell he truly, sincerely means it. Then he sits beside her, leaving ample space between them, and awkwardly pats her shoulder. End of the episode.
Now, that, people, is a real villain. Not cardboard bad. This is not one of the bad guys from
The Fairie Queene where bad is just bad and the outward appearance and action stands in for the inward person. Not a psycho for whom reality is but a distant memory.
I want that guy for my hero. I'm twisted that way.
Fine.
Back to work.
nooooooooooooo!!!!Labels: Buffy, procrastination, villains, writing
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Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Addiction is such an Ugly Word
And yet, I am addicted to Buffy and want to marry either Spike or Angel. Don't know which for sure.
My Grand Central (Warner) editor emailed today to let me know the copyedited MS for
My Wicked Enemy is on its way to me and they need it back the 23rd. That's the publishing biz. Wait wait wait wait wait (Hum the Jeopardy Theme....) ohMyGoshHowSoonCanThisBeDone? But I like it. I'm funny that way. 23rd should be no problem.
Xia's going more slowly than I like right now. Back to it.
Labels: Buffy, My Wicked Enemy, writing, Xia
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Thursday, January 03, 2008
Feels like Friday
Only it's not Friday. If that's not cruel, I don't know what is. I'm just past 10,000 words for Xia. I like what I have so far. Lately on the drive to and from work, I've been turning off the radio to think about where I'm going with Xia, or to mentally play or replay a scene. I've never really done that, but then for a long time my commute was only 15 minutes. There are 3 big storms ready to hit my part of California. I think the first one just got started. Hopefully the trees stay upright and rooted.
Oh, and last night my son and I were only going to watch 1 episode of Buffy, on account of it was a work day for me, only the first one was the episode were Buffy and Angel... you know. And ohmygosh. Well, we couldn't not watch the next one. I got sniffly. The stories are getting better and better.
Now I'm off to write and check the laundry.
Labels: Buffy, writing, Xia
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