“Where do you get your ideas?”

This is the question every writer gets asked. Usually the response is vague dread, because many of us don’t know on the spot where we get our ideas. The answer comes only after a good session of introspection, and at the moment the question gets asked, we can’t reflect on the question rapidly.

Over the years I’ve done this introspection, and these are the answers I’ve come up with:

From other books I’ve read. But I need to be careful not to plagairize.
From dreams/daydreaming. This is my favorite source. I often take a dream and interpret it using Jungian methods, which I call interrogating the dream.
From conversations with my husband, which often start with “What if?”
From observation. I don’t know if I’ve ever written a story entirely from observation, but scenes and characters often come from this
From what I’ve written previously. Sequels!

Sometimes I don’t have any ideas. Right now I feel like I need to write a new novel (after revising a couple) and I don’t have any ideas. Ok, actually, I have three ideas based on series I have going, but I don’t know how excited I’m getting about them. Not all ideas are workable:

One of the books would require living in Poland for at least three months to get the flavor of the place. I have no money, no knowledge of the Polish language, and no tour guide.
Another which is part of my Archetype universe, and for some reason it’s not grabbing me.
Yet another in the Archetype universe that’s too nebulous to write about.

I think I need some dreams or daydreaming right now to inspire me. My dreams last night were stupid and not worth writing about. In my dreams, an actor friend of mine got a nose job and I got really angry because he had succumbed to dominant culture beauty standards. That’s it. Unless I’m writing a warped version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, I don’t see much use in this dream.

So where do I get my ideas? Sometimes, nowhere.

My Wedding Anniversary

Today I have been married for 14 years. Given that I’m 57, that means I got into the game relatively late. This is not surprising, because I’ve always been a late bloomer.

I probably haven’t introduced my husband sufficiently. Richard is five years younger than me, and another late bloomer. He’s a delightful match for me, being nerdy, bookish, funny, and very tolerant of my mood swings. Here is a picture of us from our wedding. We look older now.

We got married on St. Patrick’s Day, mostly because it was the first Saturday of Spring Break for me. I’m part Irish (and part everything else in the Caucasian category) and Richard is not Irish, being biracial Chinese/German. So we made Richard an honorary Irish person. Our engagement rings are Claddagh, and our wedding rings are Celtic knotwork in honor of the wedding date. Richard laughs when anyone asks him if he’s Irish, though.

It’s been an interesting 14 years. Three job losses, one psychiatric hospitalization, one house move, and COVID. A lot of laughter, house projects, and trying out Asian restaurants. Eight cats, three dying cats to stand vigil over, both our mothers dying. Bad puns. Problems solved.

It’s been an adventure so far, which is what marriage should be. Someone to help survive the hard moments, to grow with, someone to share the good moments with, someone to grow with. I finally found this with Richard.

Aeon Timeline Review

I have a somewhat tenuous relationship with time, and nowhere does it show up more than when I’m writing. Even though I write fast-paced plots that run over a few weeks or a month, I lose track of the time and suddenly two different plot points are happening at the same time.

I used to sit with a calendar and make notes on the Scrivener file, chapter by chapter, but then I didn’t get the full picture; I had no one document where I could look at the whole timetable. And flipping back and forth between chapters makes it hard to remember the sequence.

Then I discovered Aeon Timeline, a program that helps you organize a timeline by chapters or individual events, characters involved, and other potentially important characteristics. It organizes itself around two concepts: events and entities.

Here is a screenshot of my current project:

On the left, you can see the timeline. In my case, it’s color-coded to match a template I have for romance writing. On the right, you can see an event (the one highlighted on the left). On the event side, you can see at the top the event data — title, color, and parent. I do not use ‘parent’ because it ties everything to a preceding event and my mind doesn’t function that way. Below that to the right there’s data such as participants and observers, story arc, and location. Those are used as sorting prompts, and I haven’t found myself gravitating toward that function yet.

Below is what the ‘entity’ window looks like:

This is the ‘manage entity’ window. You can add entities here (to add anywhere, click a ‘plus’ button) and edit them. I recommend using this box rather than the ‘add entity’ box because you can manage things better here. Note on the left the window will also let you define story arcs and enter different places.

Notice I don’t use the birth/death blanks because I’m not writing epic fantasy. If I ever make the unified timeline for all my novels, I could use that. (But it would be an unwieldy timeline spanning 6000 years.)

The good thing about Aeon Timeline (to me) is that I can see that timeline, and in making it, I can ‘feel’ that timeline. I often make it after writing the book in my proofreading stage. This is probably the wrong way to use it. If I set it up before, I could actually import it into Scrivener (my writing software) and the timeline would show up. Somewhere. I have to try that.

The bad thing about this is all the data entry. I feel possessed to put in all the entity data and use all the categories when developing the event, and this can be a lot of work. Being a plantser (planner/pantser) writer, I don’t know that I would know all the events before using this tool such that I could use it at the beginning. I would advise to enter what is needed and leave the other bells and whistles alone.

I’m halfway through entering my Christmas romance for the year, Kringle in the Night, as I edit it one more time to make it ready for the Christmas season. It’s helping greatly. I’ll let you know about the Scrivener integration later.

Everything, Anything, or Nothing?

My horoscope says my brain is worth of chatter. It is, if what you mean by chatter is “I really should doing this/that/the other thing” instead of coming up with any sort of new story ideas. And to some extent it’s right, given that I have an important assignment to grade, two interns to visit and two classes to prep for tomorrow. I will be busy today.

But I will manage some time for — what? I have to come up with an idea for Camp NaNo in April. Camp NaNo is like the training wheels version of NaNoWriMo — you can set a minimum of 10k words for a goal, there’s a lot more acceptance of doing something other than a novel during this time — it’s overall just a good warmup to a major project.

I have some back projects I could work on, if I can get engaged in them again. The main one is Gods’ Seeds, which deals not with gods per se, but the immortal Archetypes who have held societies’ cultural memories. The death of these memories will kill the people they represent. And now, as their leaders want to give cultural memory back to humans, a civil war between Archetype factions threatens widespread extinction across the Earth. One woman, one who touches mortality and the deity of the Archetypes, must realize her role and stop the immortals from fighting.

The other one would be fascinating, if I could spend six months in Krakow. This is not going to happen.

Part of my lack of ideas is this frustration with the idea of traditional publishing. I am beginning to consider self-publishing the rest of my catalog — fantasy and romantic fantasy, even as I struggle with the whole “your stuff will be considered better if you go through the gatekeepers.” It’s a big issue in the publishing industry, because self-publishing is confused with vanity publishing. But many famous authors started with self-publishing. I don’t think I will be famous, but I don’t want these books languishing in my computer files.

Or I could resubmit one of my works to another set of agents (or the same set of agents). That will take some work.

I don’t know what to do right now. Everything, anything, or nothing?

Talking About My Books

The cover blurb (if I get that far) for Gaia’s Hands:

Dr. Jeanne Beaumont’s life has escaped her logical, scientific notions – a seedling in her lab has grown into a monstrous vine, and a man half her age courts her.

Josh Young’s world of spirits and visions informs his writing but isolates him. Then in a vision of his current crush naked in a lush orchard of trees and vines, he realizes he wants more.

As Jeanne and Josh discover each other, pieces fall together: the vine’s lush growth, Josh’s visions, the attacks on Jeanne’s life’s work. What brought them together threatens to push them apart, unless they realize that things don’t have to be logical to be true.

***********************

I’m bad at writing book cover blurbs, and not that great at writing cover letter blurbs. It’s hard for me to find the essential pieces, keep the suspense in place, and communicate the gist of the book in as few words as possible. I’m lucky that this blurb only took two tries (but I thought the first, too long draft was perfect. Go figure.).

I might have learned something from this, however. Don’t repeat, don’t tell the whole story. I need to go over all my cover letters now and see if I can capture what I learned there. Wish me luck.

I see the light at the end of the edit!

I am done with the revision of Gaia’s Hands! I think I finally have it in a place where I like it, although it definitely needs some revision on the revision as any good novel would.

This is momentous, because Gaia’s Hands is the first novel I ever wrote.

To give you some background — I had a dream. And it was a pretty raunchy dream, raunchier than the book finally ended up, but it was also romantic. So I kept interrogating the dream, and particularly its characters, and it kept developing further.

I kept writing excerpts of the dream and its spun gossamer threads, and I kept making my husband read them. (My husband is very patient.) After maybe a half-dozen of these, Richard said, “If you’re going to write all these stories on the same topic, you might as well write a novel.”

“I can’t write a novel!” I squeaked. “It’s too long! I don’t know how to write plots!”

“Try,” he said.

So I wrote the first draft, and didn’t like it. I then wrote several other drafts, adding voiceovers and deleting them, adding a couple new characters, deleting them, turning it into a novella, giving up on that. and leaving the story in the metaphorical drawer for a while only to start again. Toward the end of the process, I handed it off to a writing coach, who pointed out that there were so many editing errors from having gone through it so many times my eyes bled, She also informed me that Gaia’s Hands was, in fact, a romance novel and I should emphasize that.

This was a revelation. I knew there was a romance involved, but there was also this fantasy element of Jeanne’s talent and Josh’s visions and the build toward a miracle at the end. Primary to the book, however, was Josh and Jeanne’s unorthodox relationship with its age difference.

So I emphasized that romance, not forgetting the fantasy elements, but using the romance as the backbone of the story. Jeanne and Josh, it turns out, make a great couple. They fight and break up in a totally believable style, and come back to each other within a week just as believably. And they make sense as the unprepared wielders of talents that come from — Japanese spirits? Gaia?

I think I’m happy with Gaia’s Hands. I think.

Ego, or Facing My Prejudice About Romance

I’m adjusting to the fact that I write romantic fantasy or fantasy romance. Fantasy romance is romance with fantasy conventions; romantic fantasy is fantasy with romantic elements. Given this dichotomy, Gaia’s Hands (the bastard child of my works that I’m currently editing) is fantasy romance, while the others are romantic fantasy.

I think I’ve internalized a subgroup’s perception of romance as tacky and trivial. I admit titles like “The Billionaire’s New Secretary” make me cringe because of the obvious and outdated gender roles (but at the same time they’re making more money than I am).

Romance sells like popcorn at a movie theater, at the same time that the readership of other genres are decreasing. Because it sells, I might have a better chance at getting my books read. At the same time, there’s part of me (the egotistical part) that thinks my books have to Mean Something. At this point I would best chat with my ego and point out that High Art sitting on my computer isn’t doing any good.

I’m not writing Books That Mean Something. I hopefully am writing books that people care about. That’s where I want to be, and my ego better clear out and let me do it.

Refining writing

I can’t motivate to write today. Maybe it’s because I had a long (compressed) work week with my first full days of class and I’m bushed. Maybe it’s because I got up later and am just drinking my coffee. Maybe it’s because there are no cookies in the house. At any rate I’m going to motivate myself to write starting with this blog.

Part of my struggle is wondering whether I’ll ever get published. Self-publishing has taken the edge off my desire to get traditionally published. At the same time, I do want to accomplish getting traditionally published. I just need the drive.

I have writing to do. I need to rewrite/write Gaia’s Hands (the book I most complain about) and edit another older book, Reclaiming the Balance. I would like to write a new one from scratch but I just wrote Kringle in the Night so it’s not time for a new book. It’s time to move out writing, complete writing, refine writing.

Oh, and just for you, I’m posting Bernie Sanders’ visit to my university:

Complexities in my writing.

I’m slowly getting through my work in progress. And I mean slowly.

Given it’s a revision from a previous version, I have pieces I can put in there and revise, but then there’s all the romance parts to put in and then there’s the flow and …

This book is less fun and more work. Just plain work.

I don’t understand why I keep putting it down. It seems like a simple story. It’s a love story of two people with unusual gifts and a destiny they’re not aware of. And an antagonist who seems like they’re involved in mundane affairs but is trying to keep them from their destiny. Ok, so maybe it’s not so simple. I think there are four or five plots running here:

Jeanne and Josh fall in love
Jeanne and Josh face their destiny despite obstacles:

Jeanne tries to get full professorship despite opposition
Jeanne and Josh explore Jeanne’s talent
Jeanne’s talent gets exposed at Barn Swallows’ Dance
Battle with opposition

Jeanne’s development
Josh’s development

Ok, The subplots make it difficult, but they’re needed because the situation changes from the first to the second half of the book. The

protagonists think everything will be okay once Jeanne gets full professorship, and then they find out that’s just the beginning. And they explore Jeanne’s talent, but they don’t discover the talent is the reason for the persecution until Barn Swallows’ Dance. All this for a romance novel.

Yes, other than the Kringle novels, my writing is pretty complex. I forgot how complex. AAArgh.

Once again, writers’ block

I’m making progress on Gaia’s Hands, BUT. I just got to the second half, and inspiration is not sitting over my shoulder and whispering ideas in my ear. I am currently in search of a muse, because I bid the last one farewell (it was time).

I know why the block is happening. I’m writing a romance novel, and this is the part of the book where everything goes south and … I have trouble writing breakups, even if I assure myself they’ll get together three chapters later (there’s actually a formula for romance novels. But there is also a formula for all good novels, supposedly. Google “Save the Cat” for details).

It’s the weekend, and I’m alone most of the day, so I want to write. I’ll set a modest goal — 1000 words and/or at least 2 hours editing a day. I think I’ll need to lay down some backbone notes to get this going.

Wish me luck.