Proof that I am sometimes productive

Ok besides like, making Christmas cookies and getting to level 50 in Skyrim and such things. And also besides cussing out the guy at Sprint for his complete and utter inability to fix my broken broken phone (side note: they're terrible terrible people and next time I'm just going to smash my phone with a hammer to get results).

But I digress. This is the ever so tentative first chapter of Book 2 which, as of yet, is sort of untitled. I'm sticking with the flower theme but haven't quite figured it out yet. Yes ok so the obvious choice here is Wolf's Bane. No I am not going to name it that. Do you know how many books are already called that? It's a lot. It's like more than five. That is a lot. And if I name my sequel that how are you going to know it is the correct one instead of like some other weird werewolf book that wasn't written by me and doesn't have snappy commentary and funny dialogue?

Ok so...it's really only PART of the first chapter. But still, a sample.

“What is counterproductive?”

I was sitting on my couch, two day box of pizza on the floor, empty ice cream carton next to me, watching Jeopardy in sweatpants and a tank top. I’d done the same routine for longer than I strictly wanted to admit. I hadn’t taken a shower just yet, but I was pretty sure I’d taken one yesterday. That was still pretty good in my book.

“Hey Rose.” Celia walked in, her leather bag slung over her shoulder and holding a paper cup of coffee in her free hand. She was wearing a mini skirt over black jeans and a black t shirt today. Yesterday had been short shorts over leggings. I was almost positive Celia never showed her legs to anyone. Including her boyfriend.

“Hey Celia.” I didn’t even get off the couch to greet her now. After the incident with Jenna in the shop and the very real fact that Celia had shown up for work and instantly known that something was up, I’d come clean and explained what had happened. About Jenna at least. I was keeping the lich business a secret to approximately everyone.

“You get that circle yet?” Since finding out about Jenna and the vague, poorly informed story I had come up with about how we had killed her, Celia had been tutoring me in magic. Which was surprisingly useful since I had next to zero knowledge and Miss Eleanor’s grimoire, while helpful, was also kind of assuming that the person reading it knew how to control their magic already. Which was not me.

The spell we’d been practicing was some sort of protection circle. Like basic witch-101 stuff. Draw a circle, use your magic to cast it into being, stay in said circle and be protected from the bad shit outside the circle. I had parts one and three down but the bit in the middle was eluding me like a needle in a haystack. I tried three times with Celia watching me a few days earlier. On the first attempt, nothing had happened. The second I’d managed to blow every light bulb in the house. And the third had singed the rug so badly I’d gone to Target to buy another rug to hide the scorch marks with. We’d called it a day after that one.

“Nah I ah…haven’t tried it since.”

“I figured since the house is still standing.”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.” In the few weeks since the succubus problem, I’d actually gotten pretty fond of hanging out with Celia. She was dry to the point where almost everything she said was funny. Even if she didn’t mean it to be. Which made it funnier to me but sometimes I had to hide the fact that I was laughing. Especially if she wasn’t laughing with me.

“So how long are you gonna wallow for exactly?”

“I’m not wallowing.” Minus the fact that I was wearing the same thing I’d worn yesterday and possibly the day before that. And the fact that I hadn’t been to the shop more than twice in the three weeks since the fight. One, to assess the damage. And the second time to tell the construction workers what I wanted done to fix it. Mr. P had left me a substantial amount of money with the shop and I figured, if I had to get it fixed anyway, why not make some improvements? And by improvements I mean also buy the café that closed next door and more than double the space we had to work with because hello, golden opportunity and the cash to make it happen.

Celia just shot me a look that cut through my thin excuses and just slightly stained attire. “Ok fine. I am wallowing.”

“Good. Now it’s time to move on.”

“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” Damn Celia and her practicality. I had at least another week’s worth of wallowing in me.

“Take a shower and come see the shop with me.”

Merry Slightly Late Christmas

Luckily I am not dead though I am pretty sure I had the plague. For like a week and a half. Which left me having to do Christmas shopping last minute which ps is amazingly fun on crutches (read: not fun at all). Then it was Christmas Eve in which my brother drank a bottle of whiskey by himself and my father's childhood friend peed on our front lawn* but moving on!

I have not made any progress on my sequel. I know I know, terrible. But I was dying and couldn't exactly write and then I got distracted and did I mention Christmas? Ok but it is now officially after Christmas so I can get back to the grindstone. I promise. Really. But I wanted to do an update that said I was not dead because between the last one and this one I was dead. Definitely definitely dead. Definitely. Also I turned into Rain Man sometime over the holiday so hopefully that will also fix itself.

But anyway, Merry (slightly late) Christmas everyone and Happy (slightly in the future) New Years! Cheers to all the writing that will take place in 2012! (And maybe the end of the Mayan calendar, end of the world, aliens, something interesting hopefully.)


* I wish those stories were lies but the sad fact is they are completely true.

Why I cannot come to the phone today

Or any day for that matter. I have the plague.

Ok no, not the plague but a plague-ish type...thing. Ok fine whatever I have a cold. Because my family won't share pretzels but will give you a virus like whoa. And I am apparently going to have said cold for at least another week. Which is a fantastic excuse for why I am not currently writing my book except for the part where it feels like I swallowed a very unhappy porcupine.

The human body is just awesome. Someone get me some NyQuil STAT, I want to wake up in a week perfectly healthy.

This is why I am a horrible procrastinator

Alright so even though I said I'd work on the sequel and even though I ranted that I do 10 words or 10 pages a day and I didn't care which it was, I sort of...skipped it last night. I don't even have a very good excuse other than I stayed up late playing video games and talking to boys (I'm only human after all). And today I have currently skipped but I have a valid reason for why.

I was baking cookies.

Yup. Cookies. Baking. Decorating. The works. For the hospital staff at Glendale Memorial in California for putting up with me for a whole month. And helping me to walk, learn how to redo things, the works. For Christmas. So I'm like a cookie Christmas elf. And since I still have to use crutches (or a cane but I want a bitching one instead of the boring one I have) my aunt came over and helped. And then we gossiped for a bit. BUT-

I fully intend to write more tonight. Totally. I had ideas for what I was planning on doing and had started it. This is where the spoilers begin (does it still count as spoilers if the book isn't written and only like 2 people have read it?)


(If you haven't read the first book none of this will make sense. That's ok. You can ignore it.)

Originally I started like three days after the end of 'Witch Bloom' and immediately had Connell and Rose jump into a business partnership. It makes sense. She does wedding flowers, he wants to bake cakes. One stop bridal shop. But looking back, that didn't quite work. Rose is just a touch prone to wallowing so I figured, after the end of the first book, the second book would find her well...wallowing. Which gave me the idea that maybe Celia would sort of take a starring role. I like Celia. I do. She's sort of the high school version of me (when I wanted to be a goth/punk girl but failed miserably). And she didn't get that much play in book one so I figure, why not make her important for book two? So she is actually the catalyst for Connell joining Miranda's Flowers (which is no longer Miranda's Flowers because she owns it now and that's too morbid even for me).

I also had about 50 pages of plot building where Connell convinces Rose to help him find his father, they go to his hometown, spooky campground, evil shapeshifters, Rose finds an unexpected ability, Francois ends up showing up, and then Rose decides she wants to be with Connell. All of that is out. All of it. Now let me explain why.

Connell is still trying to find his family but there is a reason behind it now other than 'hey let's go do this thing so we aren't in Boston anymore'. I like things to be motivated. And of course that turns out to be layered. Since I changed the ending for 'Witch Bloom' from what it was originally, I intend to use Francois more. So he will probably have to tag along from the beginning instead of showing up only to immediately be rejected. Evil shapeshifters are no longer straight evil but have reasons for their actions (because if you're a bad guy you never think you're a bad guy you think you're doing the right thing). Rose might still have some unanticipated side effects and of course some new-found abilities even though she still kind of sucks at magic. I figure in the heat of the moment instinct would take over and she'd be able to somehow fake it.

However, Rose and Connell are not going to get into an immediate relationship. I know I classified it as a paranormal romance book and I realize I skimped on the romance but this one I am sticking to. I haven't decided if they will eventually, if it will be in this book, or if it will never happen. It is obvious he is interested in the idea (as is Francois but I'm undecided on him) but my reasoning is this. She just got out of a seven year relationship with a douchebag but nonetheless, seven years. If she jumped into another relationship immediately it'd be more of a revenge fling than anything else. She needs some time to get her shit together and figure out her life since basically everything about it has changed.

Will there be tension? Of course. Will there be romance? Maybe some because I can't go completely cold turkey. Will she get with anyone? Undecided. And I am staying undecided. I'm just gonna write and see how it turns out. Speaking of writing...I should go do that now huh.

I have no more bad Bon Jovi puns

That's a lie. I have infinite Bon Jovi puns. I am just restraining myself. But...
Awwww yeahhhh
Cover art (and blog redesign because I am technologically impaired) by the fabulous Ashley Moore. Words by me because ah, that is the point of writing a book I suppose.

Here's the edit. Because I almost never edit anything in my life and generally don't plan out anything I write sometimes I forget things. But this one is important damn it.
I want to thank everyone who helped me along the way, encouraging me, helping me edit, brainstorming, or in general letting me rant about how insane I was to try and write a novel. And they are (I'm going to apologize ahead of time because I might not remember exactly everyone because it was a metric ton) in no particular order: My mom and dad (dur), Ashley M, Meg, Michael, Rochelle, Trevor, Cole, MJ, Ashley R, my aunt Becca, Jamie, Stacy, Larry, Marcia, Remona, Austin, Andrew, Kenice, Brandon, and Rony.

If I forgot you, I already apologized (see above). But I still thank you and I'm sorry my memory is terrible. It's genetic I think. I can't remember anymore. Now back to what this post was before I so rudely interrupted, ah, myself I guess.

And here's the problem I have. As I am currently recovering from surgery (and really when am I not?) I have lots of free time. And Amazon lets you track how many people have bought or downloaded your book. Great. Because it isn't like I'm already obsessive enough now you have to enable me to be even more OCD? This is why games like Skyrim exist.

And now for something completely different: I always get upset when writers say they only write when 'inspiration' hits them. Really? Really? I get inspired, truly inspired, like maybe once every few months. And when that happens I can sit down and write 20 pages like it's no big deal. But if I always waited for that, then I'd never finish anything ever. So what I do instead is write. Every. Damn. Day. And whether I write 10 words or 10 pages I consider it a victory. Even if I end up going back and deleting all of it because at least I got something out. And sometimes by forcing it like that I'll write crap, crap, crap, crap, and then BAM something actually clicks and it turns into gold. Or whatever the word equivalent to gold is.



Oh fine I'll have to eat it now and follow my own advice. Progress on sequel, here we come.

A victory and a reflection

There's something terribly scary about going the do-it-yourself route. I did in fact publish my book for the Kindle on Amazon using their little Kindle Publishing bit. It's in review now, and will be available to buy (with any luck) for $.99 in 12 to 48 hours. But, let's take a step back first because I'm pretty sure this is what shock feels like.

Yesterday I decided that today was my deadline to publish my book. It's been written for ages, I finished editing it, formatting it, the works. I decided I needed a cover. I went to art school yes, but I have not drawn anything in years. Luckily I have art friends that actually DO draw and do it well. Unfortunately, as I am also a horrible procrastinator, I decided I needed a cover in approximately 24 hours. Thank god for Ashley because not only did she do it but she did it beautifully.

So, now we have book, cover, synopsis, keywords, tags, the works. And I discover I am too scared to hit the publish button. Wait. What? I've been working on this damn book for over a year, the entire goal was to get published or do it my damn self, and now my damn self is too scared to do it? Why exactly? Because I was worried that once it was published and people read it, that it would be horrible. Or that I'd never get picked up and then I could never write again and then I'd just have to be a crazy cat lady and start hoarding coffee tins or something equally uninteresting. If I never published it then I could keep it all to myself and say, 'oh yeah it's fantastic you should totally read it' but then never have to account for it. I could just hide it away from the world and covet it like Gollum. The precious, yesssss.

But that is not now nor has that ever been who I am. My entire outlook on life borders on a slightly psychotic view of 'fuck it let's do this'. I texted my mom that I was scared to hit a button and release my novel into the world and her response was simply, "Don't be. This is what you love." And she is right. I don't care if it gets good reviews or bad. I don't care if one squatter in Malaysia is the only other person to order it besides me. I don't care if I never get picked up and have to print all my books myself with a Gutenberg press because I'm old-school like that. Like it or not, if I could only do one thing for the rest of my life then I want it to be writing. And if I have to write on paper napkins while making hamburgers at McDonald's, then that's what I'm going to do. Day jobs are day jobs and I'm ok with that if I get to do what I love in my free time.

For all of you fellow writers out there, then I guess this is my sort of insane advice. Write. A lot. Like an absolutely fuck-ton. And send it to people. To all kinds of people, even the ones you know are going to hate it. And if you know an agent then totally blow them to get published because I assume that is way easier to do that doing it yourself. But if you don't....then fuck it, do it yourself. You have words. You want to share them with the world. We can do that now, on our own. And if no one else reads your words except some homeless squatter in Malaysia, then count it as a victory.

We're halfway there

I actually finished editing. Fourth round of it too. I know there's still mistakes too which is aggravating because I'm a bit obsessive about those things but it is the best I can do. Now comes the hard part: preparing things to go on Amazon.

Apparently it's kind of a process. In that I need a title page, the correct format file (that you can check with a Kindle emulator except it doesn't work at all), a cover picture, even a dedication page. Like an actual book even though it's just going to be released for Kindle which I somehow equate to being not an actual book. Probably because it's more of a word file than an actual physical object you can hold and own. But props to Amazon for doing it because I wouldn't be able to share my book with anyone (ok, share with anyone and get money for it). Now I just need to write said title page, dedication, fix the format, and write a synopsis. Fun times.

Also, that's really all I have to say. Why exactly? Because it is Skyrim time damnit. I finished editing today I now get a reward. And that reward is dragon killing.

What do lobsters dream of?

Disclaimer: this has nothing to do with writing and more to do with my father being kind of a terrible (hilarious) person.

Ah Christmas, the season of giving. Also the season of Christmas parties. And what better way to combine the two than a Christmas Yankee swap. In which you buy a cheap gift, draw a number, and then spend the entire night trying to steal the best gift from that bitch who drew number 1. The true spirit of Christmas: stealing.

My mother's gift: a rather practical Mary Lou's coffee gift certificate and some scratch tickets. As it is a party full of officers of the law, it is both useful and appropriate (and not potentially insulting like buying twenty dollars worth of donuts). My gift: two bags of coffee and some pumpkin scones. Again, relatively practical but not fight-worthy by any means. My father's gift: two lobsters. Do we see a break in the pattern here?

Because we know a lobsterman (it's New England, who doesn't?) we even get said lobsters for free. Which he puts into a box and wraps and then brings to the swap. And then the entire gathering spends the next hour trying to steal the lobsters and swap out a package of flashlights (the gift I got stuck with) for something they would actually find delicious. The lobsters are stolen no less than half a dozen times. I steal them, exchanging a perfectly good George Foreman grill for them, and had believed to get away with them as the next several steals were for a bottle of rum. That is until a perfectly nice woman with several young children steals them from me and leaves me with said flashlights (which is a terrible gift by the way).

Now I would be quite fine with that if it were not for this woman's intentions. Did she plan on eating the sweet sweet meat of lobster goodness, which personally I don't go for but I've heard from some is quite tasty? Nope. Not even a chance. She wanted to set them into the water and let them go free, Hollywood style. Now, wait a second there. Freedom? For lobsters? That have been out of the water for eight hours and probably had their tiny lobster lives flash before their eyes several times as small children tormented them for entertainment at a Christmas party? The closest body of water also, is a freshwater pond so unless you intend to drive an hour and a half to the ocean and set them free, chances are they aren't going to make it home to see their lobster families for Christmas.

Now when my father hears of this he is understandably upset. Lobsters are for eating and sometimes for dressing up but not for freeing back into the wild. So what does a well-informed, slick talking officer of the law to do? Tell the woman that the the lobsters have been out of the water too long, they will not survive. Of course lobsters start to produce ammonia when they are on land, if she were to release them back into water now they would drown. They are going to die either way so would she be interested in a trade for some coffee beans and he will tell the children he is taking the crustaceans to a 'nice friendly lobster farm'? Not wanting to be a monster and the cause for the death of two noble sea creatures, the woman complies. My mother and father enjoy a delicious lobster dinner.

And the story about lobsters being out of water too long, producing ammonia, and drowning? Utter bullshit. But the way he said it, you'd have assumed he had a PhD in lobster physiology and was the world's leading expert on the hard-shelled bastards. I will give him credit. The man is good.

Is that progress I see?

On something that totally isn't what I should be working on, why yes. And no, before you say anything, it isn't a video game either. I mean actual progress on an actual piece of writing that I actually someday might finish. Let me explain.

So when I originally wrote the draft of what would eventually turn into 'Witch Bloom' I always had the idea in mind that it was a series. And a series it still shall be if I can ever stop procrastinating and actually work (and publish the first one but did you not catch that bit about procrastinating?) In fact after I wrote the first draft of book one I totally went on vacation for a week and then decided, nope screw that, and started writing a book two. I got fifty (that's progress for me ok) pages into book two when I went back and started rewriting book one. And once I rewrote book one and I do mean rewrote because I changed so much of it, I decided maybe I'd change my ideas about book two.

I figure 'Witch Bloom' is sort of a coming of age story except make the characters older and a lot more jaded (it's a pun see? Haha. And I hate puns.) As such it sort of stays in one area for the whole time. And that got boring so I decided book two, road book! Awww yeah, insert 80s montage! Well I ran with that idea (I need to stop it with the bad jokes like, now) and laid out fifty pages of plot and story and ideas and all sorts of fun things. And I just decided to kill all of it. I'd had ideas of what to change and whatnot but I decided tonight basically to just kill it all. I'd take the tiny baby pieces of what I liked and maybe rehash them into the current version but I'd start a completely new version from scratch instead of hacking and slashing what I had previously written.

In an odd spurt of productivity, I actually started writing said new sequel beginning. Unfortunately, it is probably another form of procrastination to not add in stupid grammar fixes to the first book. I do however enjoy writing new stuff more than I like editing old things. And there is something sort of fun about taking fifty pages and countless hours of working and just saying, nope! Not using you! Wait, no. It's the opposite of that. It's completely the opposite of that. But I didn't like the direction I was heading in and if I don't like it then I won't read it and if I won't read it then how can I expect anyone else to want to read it?



Ok so maybe I'm justifying it in my head but hey, at least I got work on a new new one done, right? Right?

Fake it til you make it

Or, the fine art of pretending like you know what you're doing. Ah school. How I miss thee. Well no, I slept through more classes than I want to admit and only vaguely remember that I had certain ones (I'm looking at you calculus). I mostly remember that A squared plus B squared equals C squared and also that my friend ruined the end of 'The Great Gatsby' before we ever started reading it. Not exactly life changing lessons there.

What I did learn in school, and the most important lesson of all, is how to bullshit. Papers, reviews, excuses, whatever I was supposed to know that I didn't know for some reason. All bullshitting. If I had to write a paper about why the film 'The Intruder' nearly gave me an aneurysm, I could do it half asleep while watching 'Top Chef' reruns. I know this because I've done it before (seriously that film almost gave me an aneurysm).

And it is a fine art I continue to practice today. Let me explain. I write notes to myself, ideas for books, questions about plots, all kinds of things. And by notes I mean full notebooks and giant sheets of loose paper and post-its occasionally when I have an idea but nothing to write it on. There are probably more pages of notes than actual novel. And this is fine.

Except when I write the note it's generally a spur of the moment thing or a brainstorm or I'm trying out ideas. I'll write down things like "Is her father alive?" and then move on to something like "pack mentality" and then do a bunch of research on mermaids for some reason. I never write down useful things like, what day does a certain event happen on? Or, what is the work schedule of these characters? Which means I have to go through after the fact (which is sort of like sifting for gold except the gold is words and you are sifting through lots of other words to find it) and make new notes that answer the questions I should have thought of originally.

Ah but I see you are still questioning where my fine art of bullshitting comes in. It comes in because I write notes on a manuscript and then immediately forget what they mean. So when I go back to fix something that I marked just as "fix this" I can't remember what I decided was wrong in the first place. But I can't admit that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing so, fake it til you make it. I'm eighty pages in, only slightly more than eighty to go. Ok so it's actually ninety but if I say slightly more than eighty it makes me feel more accomplished than I currently am. And when I said I was just editing apparently that was also a lie because I rewrote a few things even though I promised (myself) that I wouldn't do any more rewrites.

I'm giving credit to anyone who actively decides they want to be a writer instead of accidentally stumbling into the idea that maybe they could write and publish a book. Because man, this shit is hard.

I have too much free time

Or, how I choose to spend my time being unproductive. Let's face it. I'm a bit of a procrastinator. A tiny bit. A touch. A smidgen. Ok, a lot. Like really, just an enormous procrastinator. In college I'd wait till the night before to write a paper, dribble some vague nonsense on a page, turn it in. I went to art school so really, they weren't exactly looking for prize winning essays. It worked. However it also instilled in me a sort of conditioning that causes me to only work when the deadline is right freaking now. Unfortunately, when you're editing your own book and have no one giving you those deadlines, you're supposed to do it yourself. Keyword supposed to.

I have a lot of free time currently. Why, you ask. Well because I am currently mending from surgery (for future reference, the spine is the biggest asshole of all the body parts. Including the actual ass itself). If I was a productive type of person I'd have finished editing, published it myself, and moved on to book two by now. And believe me I do in fact have plans for a book two. I have plans for upwards of a book four. I just...have to get around to writing them down. Again, procrastination.

I have a process. Really. It involves basically throwing up all the word vomit ideas in my head onto a word document, leaving it alone for a few days, and then going in and editing. And by editing I mean rewriting basically the whole damn thing. The original book started out in a plain document and ended at 80 pages. The version I have now comes in closer to 170. I did my rewrites in red font because I'm just a touch crazy like that. By the end, there was more red font than black. For just that extra touch of crazy, I printed it all out then (hey, office laser printers were made for just such an occasion) and edited it again with red pen. a bit like grade school, but effective. Except I would write strange notes, just circle a whole chunk of a page and write "fix this". But I didn't note down what exactly I was supposed to fix, so now I have to go back and pretend like I know what I was thinking of at that time. Effective, no, but still a process.

A slow process because of those 170 pages, I only have 50 that are fully finally finished being edited and are all set to publish. The reason why it isn't all 170 pages? One word: Skyrim. Because honestly, given the choice of fixing grammar or killing dragons, which one would you choose?


Oh don't give me that, I'll finish editing. Just as soon as I kill this dragon...

It starts...

Yup, that's right. I wrote a book. Why is that strange, I hear you asking quietly even though you're not actually anywhere near me so I can't possibly hear your physical voice. It's strange, friend (we're friends now by the way. I just decided that.) because I am not a writer. I'm a filmmaker. More specifically, I'm an editor. As in, the one who sits in the dark room hunched in front of a computer clicking a mouse while a director says that a shot is a tenth of a second too long. Fun times.

Right but anyway, I wrote a book. And then I sent it to a bunch of friends to read who generally decided they enjoyed it. Which got me to thinking, why not try and get published? And that is where I find myself: in the spiral of insanity that is the world of trying to make it as a writer. As in, impossible. Well, I am just that particular brand of crazy to try and do the impossible so, instead of finding some sort of agent to...persuade (read: sleep with) to publish my book, I decided I'd go the good old do-it-yourself kind of way.

So, for anyone interested in how exactly to go from finished book to maybe someone paying you for said finished book, or anyone interested in reading the strange ramblings of a semi-writer and her stream of consciousness narrative, then congratulations! You hit the jackpot! If you're looking for insight into the fine craft of writing, ah no. Sorry. This is not the place for you. I have a film degree which means I can tell you exactly how terrible the movie "The Immortals" was but not necessarily how to fix it (hint: change everything). If I had a literature degree that entitles me to sit in Starbucks with a cappuccino and a Macbook and scoff at everyone else but sadly, I do not. I don't even drink coffee. And if I did I definitely wouldn't pay six dollars for it because seriously, who does that?

But I digress. This blog (I hate that word by the way) is about the book I wrote. Which is titled, easily enough, 'Witch Bloom'. Because the book is my response to the 'Twilight' phenomena and as such has to have, not necessarily in order: witches, werewolves, vampires, liches, naga, necromancers, and a psychic because why not. Did I mention I was a supernatural and mythology nerd? Yeah. So I wrote a book for the person too old for "Twilight" but just a bit too jaded for any of the multitude of vampire novels available now. Heavy doses of humor, cynicism, action, adventure, horror, a touch of romance, and a reoccurring Fedora joke. Wait no, take out that last bit, that's Indiana Jones. But everything else is there, I promise.