Favorite characters!

I think Danielle Ferries started this meme, but everyone I know has picked it up and run with it, and now me too. I've been thinking about which of my characters are my favorites, and I've settled on some mildly surprising choices.

Of course I love all my characters, even the most despicable bad guys. But some characters intrigue me more than others, in a writerly way. These are the characters with a lot of surprises up their sleeves, one way or another, the secondary characters who are as vibrant as the main characters, the ones who for whatever reason make me want to write about them forever and ever and ever. Here they are in no particular order:

Kristof Hart--Viewpoint character of The Weredeer, who also appears in the short "The King's Messenger" (which appeared in Renard's Menagerie #5, although I think I have the reprint rights available now and may do something with it). He's not the shiniest spoon in the drawer, but he's ferociously loyal to his family and friends, and he's a good person besides. I feel kind of bad at the awful things I make happen to him.

Ash Cutsaw--Ash is a troll, and he was only supposed to be a minor character in The Taste of Magic. He sort of took over. He's a musician, and a damn good one, and he makes a great foil for Ana, the main character. Ana is talkative, impulsive, warm-hearted, and a little unsure of herself; Ash is cautious, quiet, and knows his place in the world. He's also been in jail!

Rone--Rone doesn't have a last name because he wasn't supposed to have a name at all. In Stag in Velvet, the (um, second) sequel to The Weredeer, he's a market thief Kristof catches and lets go, because Kristof feels sorry for him. He turned out to be useful to the plot so I kept him around--but he's also a fascinating character to write. He's the kind of guy you want to hug one second and smack the next. Kristof isn't sure what to make of him.

Tavrax the Lich--In Evil Outfitters, Ltd., Tavrax is a former warlord lich who has settled down to run Evil Outfitters. He's not a central character in the first half of the book, but I got so fascinated with him that he ended up with a much more important role in the second half. He's intelligent, well-mannered, rather smitten with Madeline Muir, one of his employees (who is also the viewpoint character for the second half of the book), and he also still loves committing the occasional murder.

EDF 2008 anthology is awesome!

I got my copy of the Every Day Fiction 2008 anthology today, and it's very, very nice. You can order it here. I have two stories in it, but there are 98 stories by other authors in it too. I sat down to browse through it this morning, and the next thing I knew I'd read half of it. There are some stories that I loved that didn't make it in, but considering that EDF published 365 stories during their first year and could only fit 100 into the anthology, it's natural that not all of my favorites would make the cut.

I've bogged down on writing and started revising--Stag in Velvet currently; I've managed to hack more than 10k words out of it so far. Since my writing goes in rough cycles of write-revise-rest, I'm not surprised I've stopped work on Blood and Taxes. I may take part of tomorrow to work out an outline for it, though. That way when I come back to finish it, I can finish it quickly.

If I mention undead sharks one more time, I bet I can get to #1 on the Google search.

bad dreams

I got my first response from an editor in about a million years, and it was an acceptance! That's a nice change. My story "Shortcut, with Traps" will appear in Beyond Centauri next summer.

That story was inspired by a dream, and I am very leery now of dream-inspired stories. "Never Be Alone" was inspired by a dream too, and I can't give that damn thing away (never mind that it's 13,000 words long). But "Shortcut, with Traps" is less than a thousand words long, a humorous fantasy story with fun science fictiony elements, so it doesn't make any sense that I'd have spent so much effort on it. It was the last story I had critiqued at my old writer's group, Pittsburgh Worldwrights, and I must have done half a dozen intense revisions since then. I'm glad it's found a home so I don't have to fool with it anymore.

I'm not sure why, but this afternoon I opened Stag in Velvet and just started cutting. I've cut more than 6,000 words already and moved some stuff around, and tomorrow I'll cut even more drastically. It feels good.

The End!

I have been writing all afternoon and evening, and I have finished Stag in Velvet. Well, I've finished the rough draft--and it is very rough. It's also 138,000 words long!

I'll start the initial revisions tomorrow while they're still fresh in my mind, and hopefully get the bulk of them worked out. I need to do the following, at minimum:

Rewrite the opening, because it all starts with the actions of a character who would not actually act that way.

Trim at least 10,000 words from the first part of the book, because the plot changed so radically since I started it that most of the first part is unnecessary.

Drop in foreshadowing of the murder mystery that ended up being much more important than it was supposed to.

Take out foreshadowing of two subplots that didn't actually come to fruition.

Trim at least 5,000 words from the section of the characters traveling, because it didn't turn out to be as important as I originally intended.

Go back and rewrite scenes where the character I added late in the plot needs to be included.

Either cut the scene that was supposed to be the book's last or work it in earlier.

Change most of the scenes where the main character bursts into tears, because just because I'm sitting here weeping gently while I type doesn't mean it's actually all that agonizing, and the more tears my characters leak, the less impact it has on the reader.

bake sale goodness

I hope all of you in the U.S. had a good Fourth of July, and all of you not in the U.S. had a pleasant Friday. I went to the bake sales this morning and bought brownies and zucchini bread and M&M cookies, and this afternoon Mom came over and I grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob, and for dessert we had a blackberry pie I made instead of cobbler. In between, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I'm still not done, but I'm getting really close. Our Hero is about to be rescued, at which point he'll go after the bad guy and then the book will FINALLY end.

After supper, Mom and I walked down by the river and talked. She asked me the title of the book I was working on, and when I told her it's called Stag in Velvet, she said instantly, "That sounds like a porn movie or something." Thanks, Mom! Just for that, I'm eating all of the zucchini bread myself!

Post-masquerade

I stayed up way, way too late last night writing. It was past two by the time I got to sleep, but I finished the masquerade scene. Tonight I've been working on its aftermath, but I need to step up the pace and not let it flag too much. I still have a lot of ground to cover before I'm done.

Trouble is, I really am in uncharted territory now. I know what needs to happen, but I'm still not sure how to arrange it so that all the characters are where they should be. The action is so complicated, with so many characters, that I'm seriously thinking about a flowchart.

It'll have to wait until tomorrow, though. I'm worn out and I've had a headache all afternoon. Time for bed, and in the morning I'll hit the Fourth of July bake sales with my mom and then come home to write until the fireworks start.

Working

I'm still stuck in the masquerade scene. It is a pivotal point in the book and a lot longer than I intended--just like the rest of the book is--but it shouldn't be taking me this freaking long to finish it. I should have the whole book finished by now.

Part of the problem is my work schedule. It turns out I'm off Thursday through Sunday--I don't have to work at all Saturday!--but that means I have an awful lot to do before the end of tomorrow. I didn't get home from work until after ten last night, and not until after eight tonight, and I do have other stuff I need to do besides write. I think cleaning the kitchen might take three of the four days I have off, for one thing.

I'm going to finish Stag in Velvet by Sunday night, though. One way or another, I'll type THE END before midnight on July 6, just see if I don't.

Bunny will have a mouse

I just ordered a mouse for my eee. It's blue! The mouse, I mean, not the eee--Bunny the Laptop is white (although still very pretty, of course). I'll probably get it around August, but maybe I'll get lucky and it'll arrive in July.

Work tomorrow, ugh. Hopefully it won't be too busy and I can get lots of writing done. I'm almost to the masquerade scene (Yeah. A masquerade.) and then I'll have the abduction scene and then the big chase, and that's it. Except for the revisions.

Vaccuuming the cat

I forgot to check my starting word count, but I'm now 112,000 words into Stag in Velvet. I'll probably get another thousand words before bedtime. This book is so freaking full of stuff! I keep remembering things I have to include. I suspect the revisions for this thing are going to be a real bugger.

I would have done a lot more writing today except that I slept late, and then I had to play some Exile III (I'm at the Tower of Shifting Floors, which I hate, so since I wasn't having fun I figured it was somehow good for me to play Exile III instead of writing), and then I had to walk up to the town center for a Coke, and then I had to--well, you get the point. But I did finally settle down to write around 1pm. I think I've probably written a good solid four hours today, all told. Not bad.

And yet, somehow, I still feel as though I wasted the day. How can this be? Even if I hadn't done any writing at all, at least I cleaned out the refrigerator and picked up all the dry dog poo from the yard. Doesn't that count for anything?

Not even a little bit of cleaning

Tomorrow is Thursday, and those of you playing along at home know that means I'm off work. I'm going to write all day. Yes, I am! I have no plans, except I have to call to make an appointment for my car's oil change and I want to walk up to get the mail and a Coke while it's still cool.

I will not turn on the TV. I will not run out to the store for anything. I will not, God help me, go see Kung Fu Panda again. I will not even clean the house. Nothing but typing all day long. I'm really close to finishing this book. Wouldn't it be freaking awesome if I could finish tomorrow?

Plans

Almost the first thing I did this morning was turn on Bunny the Adorable Laptop. I finished a scene I started last night, and then on impulse I opened up White Rose for the first time in months.

I read the first 30,000 words or so and you know what? It's not nearly as bad as I thought. It's kind of scary to think that what I write when I'm allowing myself to write badly isn't actually much different from what I write when I'm making an effort to write well.

Once I'm done with Stag in Velvet, I think I'll finish White Rose. By the time I'm done with it, it'll be close enough to November that I won't want to start a new long project and I can hopefully get some short fiction written. And then, NaNoWriMo 2008! I've been saving Charmed Circle for NaNo, incidentally. Can't wait, can't wait!

Chicken burrito = fail

I am doubtful about this microwave chicken burrito. It fails the smell test. That is, it smells like the inside of a filthy diner in Podunk, Indiana, the one with greasy dust on all the windows and dead flies on the windowsills. It may be the best thing I ever ate, but I think I'm going to throw it away without finding out. I think I can stand to waste 38 cents plus tax. Besides, I have a beef and bean burrito in the freezer that I know I'll like because I've been eating them for lunch all week.

I've been writing for hours, but it's going slowly. I'm at a low point in the action before it explodes, and I want to get through this part tonight and hopefully get a big chunk of the climax written tomorrow. I'd like to finish the rough draft to Stag in Velvet by mid-July (if not sooner). For one thing, I want to work on something else--not because I'm sick of these characters, but because if I didn't make myself work on other stuff, I'd happily write about these characters forever.

Right here, right now

I'm 97,000 words into Stag in Velvet, and I've finally reached the first part of the extended climax. This evening I wrote up to the end of a scene that I wrote a year and a half ago. Now I'm off the map--although I do have an outline.

After I reached that stopping point, I wasn't entirely sure where to start the next scene. I put my shoes on and went out for a walk to think about it. It's a gorgeous, perfect day here, and as I walked around town and thought about the story, I had one of those "right here, right now" moments.

I live in a small East Tennessee town, with comfortable neighborhoods where people wave at me as I pass and cats stare at me, and where the shadowed and jungly East Tennessee forest backs right up against people's houses and everyone's fine with that, thanks--leave your soulless tract developments at the door. I was planning to move closer to my job this fall when my lease comes up, but I think I'll stay. I'd love it here even if I didn't grow up in this town, but having so many years of memories tied up in this place makes me feel like I'm living in a big security blanket.

My life is admittedly dull, even if my neighbors do seem determined to fill their yard with things that belch flame, but I'm happy with it. I'm even happy with my writing career--I may not have left the runway yet, but I've lifted off the ground. I wouldn't trade anything about my life for anyone else's, not even J.K. Rowling's.

Well, okay, I'd take the money.

The book puzzle

The neighbors have installed a waist-high citronella burner in their yard. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to be typing along and notice an open flame eight feet away from me, even if it is outside on the other side of the hedge. Which is going to catch fire any second now.

I've gotten a lot of writing done in the last two days. I have so much I need to cover in the rest of this book that I've had to give up on the original outline. I've now got a point-by-point outline set out by day, so that I know exactly when everything happens in relation to everything else. There is a mystery involved as part of the plot, so I guess I'm getting a taste of what a real murder mystery writer has to do.

It's kind of fun. Like putting together a puzzle.

Books about deer

I'm tired of waiting to hear back on The Weredeer sub I have out to a small press, so I decided yesterday that it was time to take a hard look at the book and send it out to a bigger publisher. It's not like I've given an exclusive to anyone, and it's ridiculous not to try all the big publishers who'll look at unsolicited subs.

I ended up rewriting the first chapter almost entirely, adding about 1,500 words, and I reread the whole book and made some small changes. You know what? It's an excellent book. I might be a wee bit biased, of course.

So I didn't get much actual writing done this weekend, although I now know who did the murders in Stag in Velvet. Unfortunately I'll be proctoring all day tomorrow and won't be able to write, but I'll make it my goal to come up with a decent title for the book that comes between The Weredeer and Stag in Velvet.

But to what purpose?

I'm in the middle of writing the midnight tryst scene, where a girl tells Kristof Important Things related to two murders. Um, trouble is, I don't know what the Important Things are.

Time to stop and think for a bit. I know what needs to happen for the plot; now I need to figure out who's behind the murders and what precisely they're doing. Maybe I should have thought about that before, huh? I mean, I'm only, what, 75,000 words in? Yeah, I'm gonna have to cut a lot from this book.

including the kitchen sink

I had today off work, so I've been doing a lot of writing in between doing stuff that is essentially wasting time (like giving the dog a shower; I don't have a bathtub, but it turns out that showering isn't a very effective way of cleaning dogs). I'm out of the transition doldrums, finally, although I haven't quite reached the midnight tryst scene as planned, because I'd forgotten all the other stuff that needed to come before it.

I'm having to fight a strange problem that I don't think I've ever had before in writing: I keep wanting to put in too much detail. This book could easily end up 250,000 words with a meandering plot but lots and lots of fascinating stuff going on, if I didn't guard against it. Then again, not only this is the third book in the series, it's one I started a year and a half ago and then set aside to work on other projects. It's had lots of time to percolate, and the worldbuilding and story construction are so rich now I have to keep myself from throwing it all onto the page.

I've also decided to keep a bit part character, the market thief. He wasn't supposed to be anything more than a plot device, essentially, but he's turned into something more. Just like every other freaking detail in the book! Oh well, I'm having fun writing this monstrosity; I can pare it down later.

9pm and dark under the trees

Oh, MAN, it's 9pm already. I just got home from work! And I have to be at work by 8am tomorrow. This sucketh.

Still, I like my job. I was hoping I'd see guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex today, but no luck. I did get a fair amount of writing done and I see the end of the transitions swamp I'm in (a section where the main character travels repeatedly back and forth, which I can't currently change due to plot constraints--although the rewrite is going to take care of it, I assure you). I'm hesitant to push the bedtime envelope tonight, but I do want to get everything typed up that I wrote out longhand today, and then I'd like to finish the theft scene and get to the midnight tryst scene--which should be much more fun. But I suspect it would be midnight in real life if I tried to write that much tonight, and I'm already running a small but definite sleep debt.

On the other hand, I do have Thursday off. I can sleep on Thursday!

most boring post ever

We're back to the usual semester schedule at work, so today isn't Friday for me. It's Thursday, and tomorrow's Friday. But Sunday is Sunday because I have to work Monday. But I do get Thursdays off. I'm not sure how well I'm going to like this schedule, but I do still love my job so I'll adapt. And I got my first paycheck, which was great--we get paid monthly, and I was worried I wouldn't get my first check until the end of June.

I just sent two stories off, and one of them at least I think is a good fit for the market. Let's hope the editor thinks so too. All my novel subs are still hanging fire. I did actually drop an email to Mundania the other day to check the status of my sub, since it's been six months now and I'm worried I might have missed their reply. Other than that, no news is good news.

Stag in Velvet has me by the throat, which is thoroughly wonderful. I do love these characters, and the plot is working well. Today at lunch I slipped into the Zone and it was very very very difficult to make myself stop writing and go back to work. It was slow this afternoon so I would have had time to do some writing in the spiral notebook I drag around with me all the time these days, except that one of my coworkers was in a chatty mood. I was her captive audience while she told me all about people she disliked in high school--and this woman is in her 50s. By that age, you really should put the petty annoyances of high school life behind you. So I spent the last hour of work almost as bored as you must be now.

Typing and Crying

I don't know if all writers do this--probably not--but I tend to cry a lot while I write. If a scene is even the least bit poignant, I'm dripping tears while I type. I try and write fraught scenes at home. Otherwise, total strangers stop and ask if I'm okay.

I just spent the last two hours weeping, blowing my nose, and typing furiously. I didn't even realize going in that this particular scene was important--but suddenly the book's themes of betrayal and trust were RIGHT THERE and of course I took advantage of it. But since I'm only about halfway through the book (or less), it was only a short, sharp taste of what's to come later.

I guess I'd better lay in a supply of kleenex.

Edit: I should point out, incidentally, that all this weeping has nothing to do with my personal emotions. I feel fine. I think I just have to concentrate my main character's emotions to a really ridiculous degree in order to write about them so that readers feel what the character feels.