I've Never Done This Before

So, I've officially joined NaNoWriMo. (My username is Brandi_Fey, if you want to friend me!) I've never done NaNo before because, honestly, I'm more of a muse writer. When the muse hits me, I write. It could be 50 words. It could be 5,000. Just depends. So, this is a bit intimidating for me. I'm not one of those writers who usually has a word goal. (Which is probably why I've only finished two novels so far.)

But I've decided to use this NaNo to finish my YA fantasy "The Morgue Tree" (see sidebar for excerpt). I've only written 3,000 words and then stopped because I couldn't figure out where it was going. But in anticipation of NaNo, I've been brainstorming and coming up with some pretty intriguing ideas. If they work, however, is another thing.

What I'm going for in Morgue Tree is an Alice In Wonderland feel (but without the acid), because the Tree is part of Morgan's (the MC) subconscious. But it has another twist and another influence (a very evil one).

The world that I'm creating here is part of, and yet separate from, ours. The residents of Mirror Lake actually call the world we occupy the Other Side. I've been playing with this and exploring some fairy legends and I like where they're taking me. But I doubt I'll make Morgan and her friends actual fairies, but they will be Fae in a way, with weird powers and abilities. Not quite human. But not too special/powerful.

Lots of ideas brewing, which is a good thing. Also, did I mention that I'm doing this sort of like Shiver? From the viewpoints of two different people, in first person. I'm having fun with it at the moment (and it keeps me from being bored) but I'm not sure if it's going to work in the end. We'll see.

So what about you? What kind of ideas do you have brewing for NaNo?

Book Review: Beautiful Creatures

I put off reading Beautiful Creatures because I thought it was just another teen vampire novel. I'm happy to say there wasn't a vampire in sight (though one character did come close).

Set in the small, backward town of Gatlin, S.C., the story is told from first person POV. And, here's another nice twist, the POV character isn't female. The male MC, Ethan, tells the story from his POV. Even though this story was written by two female writers--Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl--the MC felt genuinely masculine (if not overly so) and had the same thoughts, hopes and dreams that I imagined any sixteen-year-old boy would have. (Except that he's maybe a little more in touch with his feelings; or at least more honest about them.)


Enter the new girl. (Didn't see that coming, did you?) Lena Duchannes is an odd one. Dark-haired, pale, but (of course) gorgeous, she wears a lot of black and writes on everything. Everyone immediately dislikes her because she's "not like them" and the name-calling and nastiness ensues. Ethan, of course, is drawn to Lena in a way he can't explain and becomes her champion...becoming an outcast in the process. A bit predictable, yes, but the setting and MC's take on things make it a worthwhile read.


But if you were thinking Lena might be a vampire, you're wrong. She's a witch. (Completely redeems the book in my eyes.) And she's also cursed. (Of course.) When she turns sixteen, she will either become a Dark or Light witch. The choice isn't hers, and the countdown begins. Ethan and Lena try to discover a way to prevent her from becoming a Dark witch as they explore their feelings for each other (and the nightmares they share). It turns out that the small town of Gatlin has more secrets (and more magic) than anyone could have ever guessed or suspected hidden under its southern pride and confederate sympathies. 


This was a fairly fast-paced book. (I read it in two days.) The characters were interesting and there were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. The thing I loved most about this book, however, was that the title referred not to the witches (or Casters, as they preferred to be called), but to humans. As Macon Ravenwood (Lena's uncle and the closest thing to a vampire in the book) says, "Humans are such beautiful creatures." (Roughly. I don't have the book on me at this time, but that's the gist of what he says.)


A pretty good YA book (and the Civil War history was really interesting). Out of five stars, I give it four.


The sequel, Beautiful Darkness, is now out in hardcover. I'll put it on my to-read list.

Monday Madness: Better Late Than Never

Oops. Yep, I know, I'm late. Sorry. Usually I write these things ahead of time and pre-schedule them to avoid this, but, yeah. I've been busy.

So, this Monday, I would like to talk about procrastination.

Or get around to talking about procrastination. Look! Something shiny!

Ahem. Okay, seriously, procrastination is a writer's best frenemy. It's fuzzy and cuddly and oh-so-much-fun, until you realize that you haven't written two sentences in the three hours you've been on your computer.

So, if you're like me and haven't finished your short story because there are just so many cool websites out there, here are some tips for overcoming procrastination:

1. Stay away from technology. No computer. No TV. No Kindle/e-reader. Not even a radio. Grab some paper, a pen and a hard surface and go at it the old fashioned way. (Also, stay away from windows.)

2. Use Write or Die. This is a handy online tool (and FREE) that will help you overcome writer's block or lack of motivation or both! And did I mention it's free?

3. Have a brainstorm session. By this I mean that you just write whatever pops into your head. Write without editing or worrying if it's good enough.

4. Set yourself a goal with rewards/punishments. For example: If I write 1,000 words today/finish this scene/finish this chapter, I can go have ice cream. If I don't, I have to pick up rocks in the backyard. (But this only works if you're the type to stick to your rewards/punishments. If you have ice cream either way, it defeats the purpose.

So what about you? How do you tackle procrastination?

I've NEVER laughed so hard in my life!

Had to share!

Monday Madness: What To Do When They Just Don't "Get It"

There have been times when I've written something that was simply on fire. I loved it. LOVED it. So I submit it for critique with bated breath, crossing my fingers and hoping they love it too. (For those of you out there further along in the publishing process, you might have experienced a similar feeling with submitting query letters.) But then the responses come back and you realize what you were so enthusiastic about has other people scratching their heads.

My first (and suppressed) reaction is always: What do you MEAN you don't get it? What don't you understand? He's a unicorn-dragon hybrid who breathes underwater! What's not to get??? (Ramble into incoherence.)

My second is: What don't you get?

It's always best to ask for specifics. If they can't be specific, you have my permission to stick your tongue out at them and move on (JOKING). But, seriously, if they can't pinpoint what's bugging them about your story then try to find someone who can. In most circumstances, once the first person puts a finger on what's bothering them, the others will usually chime in with "Yeah, that's what I meant!"

Third: How would you recommend fixing it?

Sometimes your critters will offer you suggestions on how to clear up what they "don't get." Maybe it's scene clarification or a more detailed description of the unfolding events, etc. Maybe it's just inserting one word. But usually you get an awesome brainstorm session from the don't-getters in the end and (who knows?) you might end up with an even more awesome story than before.

(Just a side note here: A reader who doesn't get it is NOT the same thing as a reader who doesn't LIKE it for whatever reason. But even for the latter, if they can't give you a reason for their dislike, it's best to just make a mental note "OK, so-and-so doesn't like it" and go on with the story. Not everyone is going to jive with your story, but they should all be able to at least "get it.")

Hooray for Friday!

I'm super excited for this weekend! My mom, cousin and I are going to Afton, Okla., for their monthly swap meet! Yay! Animals! Yay! Flea Markets! Yay! Awesome Mexican food! I'm seriously looking forward to this. :D

And, what my husband doesn't know, is that if they have kittens there...I might be returning home with one. Muahahaha.

How can you resist me?

So, what about you? Have any awesome plans for the weekend?

Good News! I'm not dead!

I'm on the mend. Finally. I suffered a setback over the weekend because I had a severe allergic reaction to my antibiotics. Only one day left to take them and I have a reaction! Gah! But, I'm better now. My skin has returned to its normal hue and my brain is halfway functioning. So, yay!

I have good news to share, as well. (Besides that I'm not dead.) I recently submitted a story to an anthology and it passed through the first round of submissions. That's not to say that it won't be rejected the next round, but it made me happy that it wasn't so horrible it garnered an instantaneous rejection. So, smiley face!

I really needed that boost, too, because my enthusiasm has been flagging again. (Though I partly blame that on being ill and on medication.) Hopefully this will give me the spark I need to continue on with my novels (which have been gathering dust (or mold, take your pick) on the thumb drive). I'm liking this short story writing, however, because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. It only takes me a few hours to finish a rough draft, compared to a few months for a novel. And editing/revising is SO much easier. But, of course, short stories have their own set of challenges, which I'm enjoying grappling with. Rawr!

I've been considering participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I've never done it before (because I'm awful about sticking to a writing schedule), but maybe this is the time for it. I could really use another complete novel. I'm think YA. I might even cheat a little by using Morgan's Tree. But since it's only like 3K, it wouldn't be cheating too badly, right? Plus, I really want to finish it and this might give me the motivation I need.

Monday Madness: He Said, She Said (The Great "Said" Debate)

"Said is an invisible word. Readers' brains skip right over it," he said.

"But it's so boring," she argued.

"That's the point," he insisted.

"Whatever," she muttered.

When I started writing toward publication, I viewed dialogue tags in the same way I viewed verbs: the more specific they are, the stronger the writing.

And then I joined a critique group whose members said that I was figuratively bludgeoning them to death with all my mutters, whispers, groans and exclamations. And thus we entered the Great Said Debate.

There are some who believe that said is the only dialogue tag to be used at all (with the exception of asked, but even that's not necessary to some). Then there are those (like the greener me) that used them ALL THE TIME and couldn't get enough of them.

Now, I'm proud to say that I'm somewhere in-between. But I've some guidelines that I follow now:

1. What do you think you're doing?

When I've finished a line of dialogue, I think about what that character is doing at that moment. What is their state of mind? Are they in the middle of an action? If so, that action can often be used in place of a dialogue tag. (This method is very much approved by most agents.)

Example: Instead of, "You cannot defeat the Ogre Army all by yourself!" Ulrich said angrily. You can say, Ulrich slammed a fist on the table. "You cannot defeat the Ogre Army all by yourself!"

2. Too much action, not enough talk.

Mickey touched her shoulder. "I love you."


She stepped away. "I don't love you."


He followed. "That's not what you said last night."


"Last night I was drunk." She laughed. 

(Note that "laughed" is not a dialogue tag. (Please, for the love of sweet, baby giraffes.))
Just as it's possible to overuse dialogue tags, it's possible to overuse action. The trick is finding a happy medium. (I hate it when people tell me that. Lol.)


3. If you have to use an adverb with said, you're probably better off using something else.

I hate adverbs. Really. Epecially "-ly" ones. In the words of Mark Twain, "If you see an adverb, kill it."

4. You say it best when you say nothing at all.

Sometimes when it comes to dialogue, you don't have to use tags or actions every time someone speaks to indicate which person is speaking. As long as your consistent with your paragraph breaks (new paragraph for a new speaker) then a reader should be able to follow. And if you have a long scene of conversation, this comes in handy.

The choice of when to use action, when to use a tag or when to use nothing really boils down to fluidity. What makes the story flow the best? To see if your conversation is working, read it aloud. If you're tripping over tags and slogging through the action, then there's something wrong and you need some pruning.

But that's what she said.

Randomness

Just some random information you may or may not care about, but has been on my mind for some reason:

I'm the most cautious impulsive person you'll ever meet.

I have the urges to do stupid things all the time, like jump out of windows, in front of vehicles, touch hot surfaces, pick my nose in public, etc., just to see what would happen. Though I KNOW that nothing good would happen. So I refrain. But barely. (I also have awful road rage, which is why I do not carry a gun. Because I would shoot so many people's tires out.)

Sometimes I forget that I'm alive, breathing, experiencing, and then I get these huge moments of self-awareness. I think, Whoa, I'm here. Right now. In this chair. That's amazing.

I drink lemon juice by the shot glass. I used to do this all the time when I was younger and wanted to be "adult." Lemon juice almost manifests the same, scrunched, painful faces as whiskey. Though lemon juice has yet to make me want to throw up.

I have prophetic dreams at times. Recently I've been dreaming that I find my cat. I'm hoping that comes true.

A book or movie can completely alter my mood. And it will stay that way ALL DAY. I watched the episode of Gilmore Girls where Lorelai sleeps with Chris because Luke won't marry her right that second and I was so PISSED for the rest of the day! Same thing happened when Rory quit college. (Yes, I'm sad.)

What about you? Have any random things going for you?

Harry Potter (Belated Banned Book Review)

I was twelve when the first Harry Potter came out.

That's right: twelve.

And I was SO disappointed that I never got my Hogwarts letter. I kept checking my window, hoping that maybe the owl was delayed or had gotten lost and that my letter to the famous school of wizards was on its way. (Never mind that I live in the U.S. and using an owl to fly from Britain to Arkansas would be a form of animal cruelty.) I was seriously obsessed with this book. It opened a whole new world for me. A special world where magic and flying broomsticks secretly existed beside parking meters and burger joints. Looking back on how obsessed I was with these books (and still am obsessed to some degree) I can understand why some parents might flip out.

It's sort of the same thing with Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It's often misconstrued as a gateway for evil and an encouragement for murder (where they get the connection that rolling dice and slaying dragons equals a desire to pick up a gun and blow your neighbor away...I have no idea). Growing up in the Bible Belt, I dealt with a lot of narrow-mindedness when it came to ANYTHING dealing with magic. I had friends who weren't allowed to watch Beauty and the Beast because the dishes were "possessed." Seriously. So when Harry Potter came out and started a literary fire, I remember all the church officials marching up to my school and demanding that such unholy filth be removed from the reach of innocents.

Nope. Not kidding.

Now, even though I was obsessed (maybe even unhealthily obsessed) with Harry Potter, there are some things a twelve year old understands immediately when she opens a book.

1. It's a book. Therefore, no matter how real the characters/situations feel, it's NOT real.
2. There's a difference between a satanic how-to and a story. Harry Potter is definitely not the former. (Though maybe if you highlight every fourth word every three paragraphs... Nope, gibberish.)
3. Reading a story (or even an instructional how-to) does not mean that you will start a cultish following and start waving wands at people and shouting "Expelliarmus!"

My thoughts? While some people forge into the unknown without a second thought, that same uncertainty scares the beejeezus out of others. Banned books are really about people being afraid; afraid of magic, the Devil or even immorality. And they think that books are powerful tools in conveying such dastardly ideas. But what they don't understand is that even a twelve year old--heck, even an eleven year old--can take what they want from a story and leave the rest.

What I thought was hilarious? At the time they were fighting to keep Harry Potter out of the schools, I discovered a lesbian erotica in the school's library. But there wasn't any magic in it...so I guess it's more appropriate for junior high kids than Harry Potter. ;)

Note: Yes, I was going to do Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings but I haven't had the time or the energy to get to the library. I highly recommend it, however.

Monday Madness: The Good, The Bad & The Tit-for-Tat

I’m a member of Critique Circle. While it’s not my most frequent haunt, there are things that it offers that appeals to me. One is the payment/point scale. For every story you critique you’re awarded a certain number of points (increasing as the story gets longer.) In order to earn the minimum points, you have to write at least 300 words (which prevents people from simply popping in and saying, “I hated/loved it” and not elaborating). Works are not limited to PG-13 ratings (they’re simply required to have a warning and, I believe, younger authors/readers aren’t able to access them). They even have an erotica forum. Plus, they implement a tit-for-tat policy when it comes to critiques. Basically, if you crit someone’s work, they should crit yours. Tit-for-tat. Sounds reasonable to me. (Sometimes there’s nothing more frustrating than a writer who won’t return the favor.)

But there are things that make me not like that so much. One reason is that not the best critters are the best writers, and I feel like I’m cheating someone who gave me an excellent critique if their writing is less than promising. (Time to break out the red pen!)

Another problem that arises in the tit-for-tat is the Genre Snob. There are genres we just don’t like to read (admit it). I’m comfortable and content in my fantasy/romance niche, but I do sometimes stray into other genres. Often it’s an exercise in helping me stretch my own writerly muscles (can I look beyond the content and focus on the technical and vice versa?), but sometimes it can lead to a problem.

With tit-for-tat, if I critiqued, say, a hardcore thriller, that author might not be so thrilled (har har) to crit my romantic fantasy. And if they “don’t normally read this kind of stuff” it might befuddle their critting skills. So, instead of focusing on plot holes or stilted dialogue, they might instead focus on how it’s ridiculous for a unicorn to be a prince (or some such completely unbeneficial nonsense) and make suggestions instead to change my story.

Tsk. Tsk. Bad critter.

However, on the flip side of that is that they notice things that other readers familiar with the genre might overlook (i.e. if she discovers a magic sword that won’t break in scene one, then how come it breaks in scene three?) since they might be more skeptical and less forgiving. I like that.

I’ve had an equal number of good and bad critters, all of them attempting to be helpful. Surprisingly, I think I benefit from both the people who are fluent in my genre and those who aren’t, and I’ll gladly wade through the unhelpful sludge. But I’m curious, which side do you think gives the best crits: those familiar with your genre or those who aren’t? 

I'm Sorry

I really meant to review a banned book yesterday. And I really, really wanted to. My brain and body, however, were not cooperating. (They're still not, but I can at least write an apology.)

Suffice it to say, however, that I have a doctor's note. Yes, I'm sick and possibly more than sick. My doc isn't sure yet. I don't think I'm dying, but if I have what she thinks I have then I might want to die. (Kidding.)

I'll try to make up for my ailment next week and review a banned book then (after all, we should read banned books all year, not just for a week).

I look forward to reading your own reviews. (And did you notice how I used parentheses in all of my paragraphs? That takes talent!)

Have a great weekend!