Road Warrior Go!

I write better at Starbucks. It’s official. I’m at Bux and I’ve written 500 words without a lot of effort. Yesterday’s writing looks better. Apparently, it takes a hot lavender latte for me to get writing done.

Or maybe it’s the split mind thing. Part of my mind is paying attention to the activities around me. Two of my acquaintances are talking at a table to my left; a group of women my age or a little older are chatting behind me. To my right, the baristas are puttering around behind the counter. There’s some innocuous background music playing. While all this is happening, I am picking words and writing this. It’s so much easier when there’s noise in the background than it is in my silent home.

Or maybe it’s because I’m writing on my road warrior gear. This consists of an iPod Pro, a Logi keyboard and mouse setup, and a cable to plug in for power. (All in lavender). The keyboard feels springier than my laptop keyboard, and the colors are more stimulating. And my setup can go just about anywhere (with the exception being someplace without a table).

I have to fix my home space to make it easier to write. I said this yesterday, but today it’s obvious that I write better out in public. Or at least at Starbucks.

What is the opposite of progress?

I continue to pants^* this book (Carrying Light) and as I write, there’s so many questions I need to address in the edits^**:

This represents the plot holes in the current draft.

Is the collective’s reaction to the chaos outside too much, too soon?
Will they really invest in self-sufficiency when Luke, an Archetype who has seen collapse before, suggests they empty the coffers to buy items that will help them be self-sufficient?
Will they then realize that they can’t be entirely self-sufficient, that they can’t grow all the foods they need to survive given the amount of land they own?
Does the stalemate at the college’s gates last too long?
Do Sage and Forrest do enough drifting apart before they join forces again?
Is all their looking for alternatives to their current lifestyle filler or necessary world-building? (I’d say necessary world-building; otherwise their adaptations seem like magic)
Are there enough fantastical elements in this story?

^* Pantsing: writing by the seat of one’s pants.

^**This story is taking about two months to write. It will take about forever to edit.

Writing about Writing about Writing

Sometimes I write about writing. I don’t do this nearly as often as I should, because I don’t have meta-thoughts about writing that often.

I could write about exposition, for example. What wisdom do I have about exposition? Only the big one: Show, don’t tell. And the not so big one: Conversations can be a form of exposition if you’re not writing things like “Did you hear about Betty? She ran off with the milkman last week.”

I could write about writing characters. Where do my characters come from? They come from an amalgam of people and stories I have known. Then I “interrogate” the character to see if they feel consistent in who they are. I have conversations with the characters, I put them in situations. I talk to my husband about characters — for example, “Would they talk back to the police?” Gideon would; he tends to be human and somewhat anti-authoritarian. Most of my Archetypes and Nephilim would never talk back lest they be discovered. They’re not quite immortal, after all, and they would alarm the authorities. Luke would talk around the cops, though. He’s a lawyer, after all.

I could write about publishing. There are many steps to publishing yourself; some of them go surprisingly smoothly, like most of the process on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP for those in the know). Others become a great source of frustration, like putting my book cover up on KDP.

I could write about hitting it big as a writer. No, I can’t, because I have not hit it big. Nor is it likely that I will, but that’s okay. I have a story to write, and it nags me at night. My characters (Sage Bertinelli and Forrest Gray at the moment) demand to be written.

I need to write more about writing, because there are so many topics … thank you, Hannah, for obliquely suggesting this!

The Home Stretch

On the professing front, all I have left to grade for the semester are two class assignments and one final. Not a bad thing; Finals run next week. I will make it.

Summer might be a light one — I only have 10 interns so far for summer. Normally I have 20. I could use a light summer, because I still don’t know what’s going to happen with my medication. It hasn’t happened yet, at any rate.

That means writing. This means finishing Carrying Light, editing Kringle Through the Snow for October 1 publication, and doing a final edit of Reclaiming the Balance, for Jan. 1 publication. If I get the guts to publish the latter. It’s such a unique book. The conflict is personal and internal to Barn Swallows’ Dance and its residents. One of the main characters is non-binary, so I wrote the book with they/them, so I expect reaction from the more bigoted.

I might also write on Walk Through Green Fire, in which the lead female rescues a prince of Faerie. That one is hard because I expect it to have sex scenes, at least one. Unless I chicken out.

We shall see what the summer brings when it gets here, which is a couple weeks from now.

My Go-Kit

As a writer, I want to be prepared for writing wherever I go, because who knows when I’m going to have an hour or two to work. I write my works on computers unless I have to interrogate (interview) my characters; then it’s pen and ink. So I have to have a keyboard with me at all times.

The problem with that is that my laptop is powerful, which means it’s big. Heavy. It has to be, because it’s the computer I do my graphics work on. Graphics to me is layout for book covers and not actual drawings or renderings, but I still feel like I need muscle in my laptop.

That means that I need a lighter computer for on-the-go. Thus, my go-kit.

My go-kit is centered on an iPad with an M1 chip and 256 MB storage at just over 1 lb weight. It’s quite useful for information gathering, word processing, and most of what I need to do to produce a book. (I understand it uses Photoshop as well, but I have some trouble accessing the materials I need on here.)

To make this a computer substitute, I need input devices. Rather than get one of Apple’s expensive magic keyboards, I am content with a matching Logi keyboard and mouse, which together cost $50. They match the protector case on the iPad as well, all in what Logi calls “Lavender Lemonade”. See above.)

All this, including the cable, fits in a small computer bag (also lavender) that goes with me almost everywhere, hence the name. I have yet to utilize it fully, however, because I have trouble using the Apple Pencil without glitches. If I can get that taken care of, I wouldn’t even need the pen and ink.

So here’s my solution to not wanting to haul a heavy computer around so I can write when I’m inspired.

I’m Done!

Ok, that was random. I’m done writing Avatar of the Maker, at least the first draft.

It needs a lot of work, enough that I don’t know where to start. At the beginning, I suppose. I think I need to make lots of notes on it and I don’t know whether to make these on paper or on electronic sticky notes. Or both; some of these notes are on the overall body of the book and others are specific. Writing a novel is hard; editing is harder.

I think I can describe the novel in one sentence: One death in this battle could kill millions.

In a paragraph: Leah Inhofer sees visions of a battle held in a dim place. Her best friend, Baird, draws her from her sheltered upbringing by his very existence as a Nephilim. They meet with Luke, a near-immortal Archetype who reels from the loss of the human patterns he carried. The battle Leah sees will happen, a battle of Archetypes. One death in this battle could kill millions of humans. Leah knows that she must act to stop the battle, at the risk of her life. She carries the responsibility as the Avatar of the Maker, who has the power to change the flow of reality.

My mind is already working on the book cover. That’s a long way from now.

Summer ends here

The week has gotten away from me, but at least I have been busy while I’ve been gone:

I’ve finished out my summer internship class
I’ve finished up laying my fall courses (except one, which is largely out of my control)
I’ve re-edited Reclaiming the Balance in case I get the courage to publish it
I’ve started editing a reader magnet of short stories in the Archetype universe
I’ve been working with my niece Rachel (a talented artist) to design the cover for Apocalypse, and a rework of Gaia’s Hands. The cover for Apocalypse is so good it makes me happy cry.

And there’s one more day until the beginning of semester meetings. Summer is over, and it was one of the most productive summers I’ve had in a while.

Long Edit Session

Hello! I apologize for not being around lately; I got possessed for a long couple of weeks of editing two WIP: Apocalypse (shooting for Jan. 1 publication) and Reclaiming the Balance (someday).

I hope they’re edited enough. I took a week for each, and my eyes are hurting. I’m falling asleep in the middle of editing. I have been doing little else. Project obsessions are fun, aren’t they?

I just fell asleep again. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

The Pieces I Have Lost

Writing requires a certain amount of editing. I have done a lot of editing in my writing life. I have edited out characters, scenes, and subplots to make books more cohesive and, perhaps, coherent.

Some of my editing I don’t regret. One of my characters, Josh Young, was young and whiny when I first wrote him. He’s older now, somewhat more mature, and a far better and more complex character. You’ll find him in Gaia’s Hands.

Also, in one incarnation of Gaia’s Hands, there was a secondary love affair between two characters. Eric and Annie were interesting characters, but their arc was too much for Gaia’s Hands to handle. Eric remained; Annie did not.

Lilly and Adam’s relationship in what became Apocalypse (which will come out in the next year) was a lot darker, somewhat superficially. There was a lot of sexual obsession, which can be a good thing, just not for that novel. When two books got merged to make Apocalypse, I lost the goth feel but kept some of the edginess. There are some brilliant arguments in Apocalypse. I also lost the (also whiny) character James, and some subplot, but again I ended up with a better result.

As I got to writing more, I have edited out pieces less. Whole characters, subplots — heck, whole chapters — no longer get discarded by the wayside. Extensive editing taught me to write with less editing necessary.

There are pieces I miss, though. The chaste sexual obsession of Lilly and Adam was fun to write, but I don’t see room for that anymore. James dying and turning into a ghost cat (don’t ask) was fun for all the catlike manipulation he added to Apocalypse. Eric and Annie make a good couple, if only for a short story, but Annie’s place in the series has evaporated. Maybe the pieces will end up in a short story somewhere. Or another novel in another world.

A Failed Book

I have been unhappy with Kringle on Fire since the first draft. This is not usual for me, as I love my first drafts with the drunken happiness of accomplishment. I have to work to be critical in the edits.

But I didn’t experience that with Kringle on Fire. It felt flat. It felt trivial. It felt wooden. It felt all the things you don’t want to see in a romance novel. I thought I was missing something until I started writing again on Avatar of the Maker and it sparkled. I had characters who responded to each other and action that flowed. I liked the characters. I felt like I wanted to write it (although I had taken a break from it to write the Kringle novel.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I let Richard read through it to see what was wrong, and he picked up on the same thing. The book just didn’t sparkle.

What happened to this book? I think it was a combination of factors that were bound to doom it. First off, the female main character is a 22-year-old single mother to a two-year-old. Given that, she needs to be very cautious about exposing her son to potential male partners so as not to confuse him with father figures. (Staying the night is a definite no-no.) So that part of the relationship has to go slowly. It’s a Christmas season instalove novel, which is the defining factor of the entire series. Instalove is the polar opposite of cautious. This puts me into the situation of either putting the son in an unhealthy place or stretching out the action for longer.

There may be a way out, but I don’t know if I want to take it. I have written four Kringle novels, and I think that may be enough if the muse leads me this badly astray. I would be better served by finishing Avatar of the Maker and the other novel I have started. I feel guilty about abandoning a novel, but the Kringle book does not speak to me.

Maybe later.