I had a fight with my MC today...

Have you ever placed yourself in front of your computer/laptop/notebook and felt completely lost, a million questions about your storyline, the wants and needs of your characters, plot developments, and my favorite, character names rushing through your head? Or maybe you stare stoically at the blank screen hoping inspiration will come down from thin air and magically twenty pages of perfect error-free text will appear before you. Or maybe you strategically and painstakingly plot your story/novel out, each bullet point on your outline describing every detail of each scene, and each character attached to a file with their name and corresponding picture from Google. Or maybe you’re like me and combine all of these methods which can create a bit of an unpredictable writing routine.

Today I took the “Wait for inspiration to strike” approach and ended up spending my day on Facebook… I tried to force inspiration by borrowing from my usual triggers; music, book blurbs, blogs, clicking through my reference photos, all to no avail. I ended up re-editing a past blog entry, snacked on starburst jellybeans (no sweets for me for awhile), and cleaned excessively (which for me is normal). I decided I needed to just sit and think for awhile about where exactly I wanted to go with my story (I’ve been editing and reworking this novel since the sixth grade) and I decided to imagine my character standing in the same room next to me so I could ask her some questions…

This is where I let my frustration get the better of me and I allowed myself to get annoyed with my Main Character (MC). She refused to answer my questions, which is understandable because I made her stubborn and difficult, but I am also the one who created her so I expected a little cooperation. She became even more difficult when I asked her questions about a scene I had just written that didn’t seem to run as smoothly as I had imagined; when I asked about a romantic interest she kept completely silent. I decided I would write her out of the story if she couldn’t tell me where she was going next… And then I decided that was probably not the greatest idea…

Imagining my characters in the same room is hard because I’ve created this fantastical world for them to fit into and suddenly I’ve pulled them out and placed them into my world. And then I hope that they answer my questions just because I happened to have a hand in their creation… That’s like saying you have to tell your mom about the party you went to last night or you’re grounded, because, she pretty much owns you… And it is exactly like that! Make your character speak to you! Yeah, she or he may be reluctant at first but you’ve got to be persistent and pull that story out of them.

I’m not saying to threaten your characters with groundings (although who knows, with some, that might work) I’m just saying put them in a corner and see what happens, imagine situations in which you wouldn’t normally place them and see how they react, imagine how they would interact with your best friend or the creepy neighbor who leaves skittles in his driveway for the neighborhood cats. Gage reactions and find out habits you hadn’t even realized your character possessed, these could eventually if not immediately help to create a new plot thread. The point is as much information as you want from your character, you have to put into getting out of your character; you did after all create them. And now I have to resurrect my main character…

I also picked up four books from the store and I can't wait to start them!

Book Review: Silver Borne

4 out of 5 Stars…

Last night I finished Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs and I’ve had a few hours to let the story marinate for awhile in my head. I don’t want to give away any spoilers because it aggravates me to no end when I read a review hoping to get an idea of what someone thinks of the book, only to find any twists of plot, character deaths, or relationship squabbles have all been dribbled throughout a review and underlined with a red marker. So, I will try my best to make my review as straightforward as possible.

For those of you who haven’t read a Mercy Thompson novel, be advised this is the fifth book in a (hopefully longer) seven book series. I would definitely suggest picking up Moon Called the first book, although the story really picks up in the second book, Blood Bound.

Booklist Blurb: The fifth Mercy Thompson yarn has the garage mechanic-to-coyote shape-shifter… up to her armpits in romantic and supernatural trouble. Her housemate Sam, a lone werewolf, has developed suicidal depression from the conflict of his two natures. Mercy herself is still working out the relationship with Adam, her bonded mate and the leader of a werewolf pack, which has been put in… danger posed by a jealous female werewolf. Then Mercy gets a call asking her to check on a comrade who may have gone missing. The Fae may be involved.

When I began reading Silver Borne I was overwhelmed with anticipation (I’ve been waiting for this book to come out for months), but once I began, I have to admit, I was left with a question mark above my head during the first hundred pages or so. Although many say they were excited to read about the growing relationship between Mercy and Adam, I felt the second half of the book was able to more successfully weave their relationship with the action-filled plot, creating a read that pushed me forward rather than placing me at a standstill.

Once I was able to get past the first hundred pages (which were admittedly interesting and kept my attention, they just seemed disjointed from the fast moving plot in the second half), the story sped up tremendously and I couldn’t put the book down. I was disappointed that it took me a little over a hundred pages to really immerse myself into the plot, and then when I got there I was hoping there were three hundred more pages to read to expand upon the intricate plot she seemed to suddenly weave. A plot filled with fae, lost love, the Underhill and so much more. She crammed so much information into the last one hundred seventy pages or so that I felt kind of puzzled and unsatisfied because things happened so quickly. She invested so much time (four books) building the relationship between Mercy, Adam, and Samuel in the previous books that it felt rushed and I wanted to put the book on pause hoping to find missing pages that went into more detail about what had occurred.

Even though I wasn’t in love with the first half (I still enjoyed it immensely) I was still enraptured by the second half which packed action and read more like Briggs’ old fantasy novels or a missing chapter from Tithe by Holly Black. Definitely check this book out; if you’ve been following Mercy and Adam for this long, or you’re hoping for more of Briggs’ classic fantasy; it won’t disappoint, and Briggs has promised there will be more back-story in the next book.

First Entry: I should be working on my thesis...

I’ve decided that because I have been so inspired by so many author blogs, I want to start my own. I find the journey from writing to revising to publication an exhilarating one and writing is such a personal endeavor which in the end gets shared with an audience (big or small) who only get to see the finished product; the polished, glossy, mostly error free version of something that you’ve slaved over for months, years, even decades. I want to share my journey in the hopes that I can hopefully help someone else going through the same journey and let them know they’re not alone!

To me the process/journey is what I’m most interested in which I just recently realized while trying to come up with a thesis statement for my body of work in school. The end product is definitely important because that is what everyone will see, that is what everyone is going to pick apart or hopefully enjoy, but to me the process is the most exciting part because during that process I have the control, I hold the reins and I decide who lives or dies. When it finally goes out into the world, whether it’s a finished story or a finished painting, you can’t influence how other people feel about it, how they review it, or even if they like it (unless you’re some kind of magic priestess who can alter people’s perceptions…).

So, because like many writers out there who do not want to post their writing in its unfinished state, wrinkled with errors and soiled with indulgences, this is mostly going to be a blog updated with news on where I am in my outline, my writing playlists, how many chapters I’ve finished, query letters, reviews for books that I have recently read, frustrations I’m dealing with, and so much more! (As long as I remember to update…) Thanks for reading and I’ll post something soon!

(I have also created blogs on livejournal and wordpress because I can't figure out which layout I'm most comfortable with. I'll post on all three until I get my bearings.)