I’ve been blocked on Tayce and Mattie. The sad thing is that I know exactly what I want to happen in Tayce, but when I try to write it, it sound stilted and pathetic. The other problem I’m having with Tayce is trying to show relationships between the characters. I want to slowly indicate her changing relationship with Henry: from distrust and dislike to grudging respect to trust to friendship. There are major events that spark each change in that relationship, too. I also am having trouble showing Cotter’s jealousy at this new, blossoming friendship between Tayce and Henry. I also have a large chapter where Cotter’s creation is finally revealed — and the only way I can think of doing it is with flashback, and flashbacks are a PAIN. I always think when I write in-scene flashbacks they are kinda cliche, you know, “cue fade-in” kind of stuff.

ANYway, I decided to try and get my writerly juices flowing again, I’ll try to write a short story with Morgan (in the timeline, the short story is before the novel). I’ve been meaning to write a few short stories, I need to practice with them — and maybe I’ll learn to tighten my writing if I write some short stories — and I wouldn’t mind sending them off to magazines and having something published. ??:

I really like how I began the short story, so I decided to add it here as a snippet. Enjoy!

(more…)

1:48 pm | Category: Morgan, Writing | | No Comments

When I was in middle school and the beginning of high school, L.J. Smith was one of my favorite authors, and as far as I am concerned she was doing urban fantasy before it even had a name and was made popular by authors like Laurell K. Hamilton (although, then again, Tanya Huff was writing urban fantasy even before then…). My favorite series was The Night World and she was going to culminate the whole story with the “final battle” to coincide with the new millennium — and then she disappeared. She just stopped writing and her last book in The Night World series was canceled (at that time, I had pre-ordered it on Amazon.com and it was only a month away before it would have been in my hands). That was just before 2000 and as I waited in frustration, without any news, her books slowly went out-of-print.

Finally, when I went to college, I decided it was time to let go of L.J. Smith’s first edition Night World series. I put them up on Ebay with a lot of mixed feelings, but the money I got for them (and I did get quite a bit) was very helpful for the move. At that time, I had lost faith that she would ever finish Strange Fate and I would finally know what happened to my beloved characters.

Then, in the last year, her books started being reissued. With trepidation and hope, I scoured the internet for any news that she was going to finish Strange Fate and while there were many rumors, none of them panned out. I stopped searching again. Then, as I was taking a break today from cleaning my office (I’m basically done, just need to put up two posters and get the trash out of here! ) L.J. Smith suddenly popped back into my mind, so I did a Google search…

…and found her website! She has a website now and on it she says not only is The Night World being reissued, but she promised Strange Fate will be available next summer! SQUEE! I can’t help hoping that this time — since it’s from the horse’s mouth, as they say — I’ll finally get to find out how my old favorite ends and what happens to the characters I loved. And apparently she has a whole new book coming out soon, too! I can’t wait!

8:48 pm | Category: Journal | | No Comments

Don’t you hate when that happens? Or maybe it just happens to me. If I loose too much sleep, my head will just pound right behind my eyes. Coffee helped the headache a little, although I was forced to get McDonald’s coffee since I only had $3 in my pocket (note to self: don’t forget wallet). McDonald’s coffee has the unique ability to be both tasty and horrible at the same time. I don’t know how they do it (yes, I’ve seen Supersize Me so it’s probably something artificial and disturbing) but it’s all fine going in until 5 minutes later when it hits you like a mac truck.

Anyway, here’s my confession. I have written 50 words in the last two weeks. Yup, that’s it. Isn’t that horrible? Bad Himani! Bad! Granted, the reason is because finals is here, that time of year when I feel my sanity slipping away and my brain trying to commit seppuku (or sati). It’s a rare finals that sees me so brain-drained that when I open my Word all I do is stare at the blinky cursor. So I may be scarce here for a few weeks as my life enters acute turmoil and then slowly goes back to being normal and sane.

3:24 pm | Category: Journal, Writing | | No Comments