It’s been a while since I posted anything writing-related because, well, I haven’t been having much success in that department. Oh yes, I’ve been spending more time than ever on the computer with a word processor open — to the point where sometimes I strain my eyes and get a headache — but I have written barely 8,000 words since the beginning of this month. Pretty flimsy for me, especially since last month I actually did so well and wrote nearly 20,000 words on “Tayce” in two weeks!

But, I guess that’s the way it is. I guess I burnt myself out for a little while. Ironically, I don’t have an empty plate. I’ve got about 30 pages in “Tayce” I’m editing right now simply because I need to change them. After writing it down, I realized that the setting needed to be changed. I would just continue and worry about editing so deeply later, but the 30 pages include stuff that’s going to be critiqued soon so I will have to change it. I also am critiquing some stuff for John; he’s been working on a strategy game for a while now. He asked me to critique the rules, do some grammar checks, and see what I think — about a month ago. I feel bad for putting it off but the truth is it takes a lot of energy and time to critique his writing.

The big news on “Tayce” is that I figured out the theme. It has to do with memories and the past, two things that seem to rule Tayce’s life. I also realized that the antagonist is fixated on the same two things as well, except her response to both her memories and her past is a little more…violent. It was pointed out to me by the critique group that I have a lot of flashbacks in “Tayce” and as I was reading it all over I realized that, yes, I do. I may do something with the flashbacks if the pace really is affected — I’ve long ago figured out that if I get into heavy editing with anything I will never finish. Little bit here and there is OK — but look, I’m trying to fix 30 pages and it’s slowing me down! If the pace is affected then I will probably cut them or try to write them differently. I already know that one flashback is out the window. It was useless when I wrote it, I knew that but I wrote it anyway. Meh, I could have said the same thing in a paragraph of dialog. Anyway, it was that comment that made me realize the theme. When looking it over I thought, Wow, everyone seems to be stuck on their past. Tayce can’t really move on past her father’s death. She has no close friends besides Cotter, and she kind of secludes herself in a house full of her father’s stuff. I realized that this was something she was going to have to overcome and that the “bad guy” was perfect for it. Wow, I had a theme all along and I didn’t even know it!

P.S.
Wordpress needs to be updated again! And I just updated it to the new script like a month ago. I’m not sure I can keep up with this.

3:21 pm | Category: Tayce, Writing | | 1 Comment

I haven’t had any time to write in the past week and a half, which turned out to be kind of bad because I ended “Tayce” on a place that later I decided to completely redo. I had forgotten this fact over the drama of the July 4th weekend (no, I don’t really want to talk about it right now) and when I opened the word document today I looked at it and went, “Oh.” And then I didn’t want to deal with rewriting about 10 pages so I just closed it and opened “Morgan.”

Yup, there’s always tomorrow.

3:07 pm | Category: Tayce, Writing | | No Comments

Wow, where did the month go? It seems like just yesterday I was tipping back coffees like tequila shots in order to keep awake for finals and now I’m really close to the half-mark of my summer break. This month was actually really good for me, for a multitude of reasons, and I got a lot accomplished (more on that at another time). But, for the reading front, I didn’t get much done. A lot of the books I read this month were quick-and-easy ones that I read in a day. I blame the first book I tried to tackle, but more on that below the cut.

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10:27 am | Category: Books | | No Comments