A Little Dose of Insanity

I realized recently that it takes a little dose of insanity to be a fantasy writer. (Okay, quick dash away from the computer to chastise my one year old for throwing a building block at my three year old's head.) I came to this realization one night last week when I was home alone and I randomly started brainstorming some ideas for book three (which has a tentative title TBA). I was pacing my living room talking to myself... and, I mean, not just talking, but having a full-blown back and forth conversation. So anyhow, I paused mid-stream and said to myself, "If anybody walked into the room right now, they would that I am totally nuts!" But that got me to thinking. I wonder how many other creative types have similarly borderline crazy habits? Is there a fine line between creativity and insanity? Perhaps. Perhaps... Anyhow, quick update: Notes for book three are coming along quite nicely. I've conceptualized a few important plot points and am excited at where the story is taking me. Revisions on The Oracle are moving. My two editors have finished their revisions, and I next have to combine their revisions with my revisions to push out a second draft. I am hoping to move the publication date up a couple weeks, but we'll see what happens!

Covers that Kill

Don't judge a book by its cover, right? Yeah right. That is, of course, exactly what most people DO. I've witnessed many book covers that kill in a good way, and many more that kill in a bad way. I would prefer that mine be the former, of course. But what, exactly, makes for a good cover? Firstly, and I got this from watching, of all things, a reality show this summer, the cover art should serve the title. It really is an act of marketing; draw the consumer's eye to the title. Have you ever noticed how many very popular authors have their names as the largest thing on the front of their books? (eg. Nora Roberts) This is because they have become SO popular that their readers no longer really care what their stories are called, so long as they are the authors. In the case of starting out authors, however (such as yours truly), the title should really dominate the scene. But that is not to say that the artwork should be boring, or, heaven forbid, cheesy. Cheesy covers can kill an author dead. Case in point, one of my favorite modern fantasy authors (who shall remain unnamed) has had the misfortune of having the worst covers imaginable put on her books. They are cliched in every sense of the word, and scream "I am a cheesy Christian fantasy novel," when the books themselves are anything BUT. She is an amazingly talented writer and crafter of stories whose books have often been passed over by people too embarrassed to be seen with them. Even I carry them around face down. Anyhow, I diverge... What I'm really trying to say is that I know my cover on The Six isn't anything to write home about, but I think that I at least avoided the cheese-train. I am working with, however, some very talented and wonderful student artists to craft new covers for my books, and I am confident that they will turn out spectacularly. We are aiming for simplicity, yet something eye-catching. They should appeal to both males and females, and they should be relevant to the stories. This is one of those aspects of the publishing process that most established authors don't get to take part in (as far as I've always heard, I could be wrong), and I am so happy, as a self-published author, to be able to have my hands in the process. Hopefully the end result will be covers that kill in a good way, helping my books to reach a wider audience, and helping my artists to share their craft with the world. And now, I realize, I have written too much. I'm sure that most of you have given up on this rambling blog post by now. If you have stuck with it to this point, my hat's off to you. You are either very bored, or a very big fan... or perhaps just curious... like a cat. (That's why my friends call me Whiskers). Oh boy, it IS late when I start pulling out Will Ferrel lines. Good night.

Quick update

I don't really have much to say right now beyond wanting to assure all of you that I am working hard on revisions and enjoying the process. I'm feeling some frustration over a lack of time, as usual, but I know that I can pull together one full revision before school starts on Monday. I only have 75 more pages to read through to finish my first revision, and then I will need to go back and enter all my changes in the computer. I'm a little old fashioned about revising; I like to have a paper copy that I can mark up with a pen. Plus, I find that it is helpful to have to re-enter the changes on the computer because it forces me to go over those changes in my head one more time. I do have to say that I am greatly enjoying my own book. My brain is alight with all sorts of possibilities for the next installment and I am seriously considering getting to work on it shortly after publishing this installment. We'll see, though. Trying to write during the school year can be like trying to swim upstream; a lot of energy expended for not a lot of gain. But I might try... I might. I have so many OTHER stories in my head right now, too, that it's appealing to finish this series in less than six years. Well, no promises. More soon!

Back Cover Excerpt

I have to say, taking a few days off from the writing process has felt wonderful! I fell asleep last night so fast that I don't even remember tossing and turning at all. But I am anxious to get on with my revisions, as well. Anyhow, I took a few minutes this afternoon to tweak the back cover excerpt. I'm not thrilled with this, and it's really too long to go on the back cover, but it's a take off of what I wrote before I actually started writing the novel itself. So, I thought I'd share what I came up with. Feedback is most welcome. What actually ends up on the book should be similar to this:

One year has gone by since Darcy Pennington’s life changed forever. A year ago she’d thought that magic only existed in fairy tales. A year ago the existence of parallel realms would have seemed preposterous to her. A year ago she’d had no real friends. Now all that had changed.

It is the summer before freshman year and a return to Cedar Cove Family Camp also means a return to Alitheia for Darcy and her five friends. Remembrances of Alitheia are bittersweet for Darcy, however, as her elusive purpose and uncertain future in the magical realm continues to evade her. Egged on by the boy she is supposed to someday marry, Darcy petitions the Oracle, a mysterious entity that can answer any question, and finds herself sucked into a journey that she did not intend to take. Darcy soon comes to realize that her journey to the Oracle has thrown the outcome of the prophecy itself into question, and endangered both new friends and old. Uncertainties continue to mount between Darcy and her companions, and an unwelcome visitor from Cedar Cove adds a layer of mystery that none of them were prepared for.

When Darcy reaches the end of her journey, it is to find herself with more questions than she started out with. And there is a cost associated with every answer that the Oracle gives... a cost that may be far greater than Darcy is willing to pay.

Reflections on being DONE!

I reach a point in every book that I'm reading (okay, if it's any good) where I simply can't put it down. I love that feeling of just HAVING to finish it, no matter how many hours you have to sit on your duff. Well, I reached that point in writing this weekend, which is rather more brain-exhausting than reading, but it was a similar feeling nonetheless. I wrote eight pages Sunday afternoon and, because I did not reach my requisite ten pages before my children woke up from their naps, I sat back down after they went to bed to write another two. Well, two turned into ten, turned into twenty, and before I knew it, I was staring at the clock on my laptop reading 3:38AM and thinking to myself, "I'm going to finish this, I just HAVE to!" And so I made myself some coffee, replaced my contacts for my glasses, and dug in. Part of the reason that I needed to get it done so bad was that I had just finished writing the climax of the story. (This included pacing back and forth across my living room at 2 in the morning with my journal and a pencil trying to write a poem for the climax chapter). Having gotten through that part, the downward slide increased (as it were... see blog post "Like Walking Downhill")and I couldn't shake the sense that I was basically finished with the story, even with thirty more pages to write. Thirty pages really isn't much, however, in story-land, so I also had to condense and cut to keep the book around 380 pages. Now, don't get upset! If, when revising my draft, I decide that the end feels rushed, I will add back in some of the elements that I cut out. (I easily had enough material planned for this book to take it to 450 pages.) I think that it will be effective as is, however, and that some of the cuts I made actually add to the mystery of the ending and will give me more things to build off of in the third book. Anyhow... so I finished the last chapter at 8:30 in the morning, by which time my two small children were squawking like baby birds to be let out of their beds, and so I reluctantly tried to accept that the epilogue was not going to get written at that time. But, I just couldn't, just COULDN'T, leave it like that! So after feeding my children breakfast, I put the laptop up on a shelf in my living room (out of the reach of grasping, sticky fingers) and typed the six-page epilogue while my boys hung on my legs (literally). You might think that makes me a bad mother, and I don't blame you, but it's not every day that you finish a novel, and I figured that it wasn't going to kill them if Mommy ignored them for a half hour. And now I'm able to give them so much better attention that the hard part of the process is over. Hey, I slept for over eight hours last night for the first time since I started writing The Oracle. That's something to rejoice about all on its own!

Okay, so rough draft of The Oracle? Check! Commence revisions...

How to Write a Fight

So, I'm a girl, obviously. The most intimidating thing for me to write is a fight sequence. Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I am a Lord of the Rings officianado, and I have watched ALL the special features on ALL three extended director's cut dvds. Anyhow, where I'm going with this is that in those special features, Peter Jackson mentioned that he never wanted to write "kissing scenes," and so he would just write in "and they kiss" on the script and hand it over to the women to fill in. Likewise, the women didn't want to write fight scenes, so they would write in "and they fight" and hand it back to the men. I couldn't help but think about this over the last couple days as I knew I had this imminent fight to write. I'm always intimidated by writing fights because I worry that I won't be able to make it realistic or exciting. But then I got to thinking... I am NOT a sissy girl. I would rather watch Terminator any day over When Harry Met Sally, and I have seen more action movies than your average teenage boy. Of course I can write a fight scene! And it's not like I don't have any existing fight scenes to reference for help, so I took out a few of my favorite fantasy novels and re-read some fights to see how others have done it. All things considered, it was quite a process just to psych myself up to get this one chapter written, but I think the outcome has been pretty successful. I wrote it VERY late last night, and I love it! But I guess the jury will be out until the book is published and read by others. SO, the chapter is called "Magician and Mayhem," and I look forward to hearing from you all whether I wrote it successfully or not.

I have reached page 286 and I think that I could possibly finish this book over the weekend. It sure would be nice to be able to sleep again!

My three-year-old is watching Phineas and Ferb right now and Phineas just said, "Ferb, I think we just stopped, and/or started, an alien invasion!" Lol. I love that show.

Like Walking Downhill

Well, I can happily say that I have reached the halfway point in The Oracle. I am on page 190 and, like I already said, I want the novel to be about 375 pages. So I guess you could say that I am a little over halfway. Yay! Writing the second half of a novel is a little bit like what Treebeard said about going south: it's like walking downhill. I took the time tonight after my husband went to bed to read over the last fifty pages that I wrote, and I'm very pleased with it. I wrote a chapter today in which I introduced seven new characters. Let me just say that I had a lot of fun with naming these characters, and anybody who likes to look for deeper meanings in things should look them up after the book comes out. :O) It's very late, I'm very tired, and I'm going to bed now.