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

I am currently typing this at Crave, the local coffee shop. I needed a change of scenery; there’s only so many days you can stay at home because the damn rental car took up your gas allowance and you are currently trying to make a quarter tank last until (at the earliest) Saturday morning. Ah, good times. Luckily Crave is near-literally across from where John works so I stopped in for a bagel and maybe a good few hours of writing. Who knows? Maybe I’ll just shift from here, B&N, and/or Borders today and try to get a significant amount of my writing done today. Who knows? If I’m diligent, I may even get to the death scene I’ve been planning since I first began “Tayce.”

Speaking of “Tayce,” I was re-reading the first 15 pages or so to get my creative juices flowing (sometimes I do a little exercise and sometimes I just re-read an old part I’ve written so I can get into the right mind frame again) and I realized…it’s not half-bad. In fact, dare I say it, it’s pretty good. I like the way I began the novel, especially:

The moon was only a small slice, a poor excuse for a “C.” It threw only a little light, enough for Tayce to see just ahead of her and make sure she didn’t fall into any open graves.

Not bad; a good hook mentioning open graves. The metaphor for the moon is take-it or leave-it, but it’s a little more unique than the usual “fingernail” moon, so I give myself an extra half cookie.

Am I tooting my own horn, you ask? Yes I am, because damn it, every once in a while it’s nice to feel one’s writing is worthwhile instead of the usual “ohmigod this is a pile of drivel why am I hoping and working and sweating blood for this piece of junk that probably will end up in a slush pile somewhere?” Take the triumphs were you can, I say! So yes, I shall compliment myself. Toot toot!

9:02 am | Category: Tayce, Writing | | No Comments

My birthday was on the first and school has kept me quite busy these past few weeks. While I’ve been writing whenever I have some free time, I haven’t really had time to post much here. I enjoyed my birthday, it was wonderfully relaxing.

——

On the writing front, I’m kind of feeling detached to my story. I have vibrant scenes in my head, but I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I’ll write a chapter and send it to my crit group and then write another chapter and send it to the group, and the cycle would repeat itself. And while it helps immensely for the immediate feedback, I was wishing the other day that I had the time to just pump out chapters, maybe even finish it, so I could see the “big picture.” Characterization is probably the hardest thing to write in your story. I would love my novels to be plot-heavy but character-driven — if that makes sense. But it’s hard to do when you can pump out a chapter a week if you’re lucky. I feel like I’m not getting the relationships in my writing across well. *sigh* Usually I can pump out some confidence, but there’s a few things I always feel sensitive about and always question myself. One of them happen to be writing (although I can’t stop just because I may be having an emo-day and saying to myself, “Ohmigod, my writing sucks and I suck and why does it suck?!” ).

2:26 pm | Category: Journal, Tayce, Writing | | No Comments