Wicked Wenches

In the paranormal realm, there are your everyday paranormal, vampires, were-things, and ghosts and then there are the not so normal. To successfully do one of the everyday creatures, you have to either make it inventive, new or so damn good that no one notices you are writing what everyone else is, which hopefully is something as authors we are striving for anyway. Vampires have gone from the seductive count to a breathren of vampires to light hearted funny fare. Werewolves have morphed into every animal under the sun and then some mythical beasts as well. Ghosts are either lovers or villians or a lesson to be learned by the main characters. Not so normal can be anything under the sun from prehistoric souls that morph into dinosaurs to countdown to the end of the Earth according to the Mayan calender to fae creatures bent on destruction and chaos.

The main thing to recognize is that every one of these started with an idea. Once you have an idea then you have to take it that extra step. What makes this idea special? What’s going to make it stand out from the hundreds of vampire stories sitting on the editor’s desk? Why is that editor going to choose my story over Jane Doe’s? Work a little harder to make your story stand out. Give it that umph. Give me a story like Buffy. A vampire slayer in love with a vampire with a soul. Make me cry when the bad happens and celebrate when the good stuff happens and make me need to know what’s going to happen next. Write a damn good book.

I’m still working on my WWWWW Challenge, but I’m way behind.

About 10k behind, to be precise. That’s a lot of writing in a week…

Motivation isn’t the problem — sleep is. I keep yawning my head off, my body demanding I sleep, like, now.
We had stock take at work, and after working 6 days straight… I’m tired.
However, I am determined to bash out those 21k, because… I hate failing at a challenge I set myself. It feels like I’d be betraying myself. No can do.

So tomorrow there will be nothing but writing. It’s my day off. I should get at least 3k done. That doesn’t sound like much, but anyone who ever tried to write 3k in one hit knows how tricky it can be. Especially if you want it to make sense.
I think I’m backspacing at least as much as I write.

So, no blogging tomorrow, no forum cruising, no nothing, until those 3k are done.

Besides… Kace nags me. That makes writing easier. I don’t have all the story in my head yet, but I know half of what happens.
And I have to uncurse the cursed. That’s gonna be… interesting lol. I have no idea yet how I’m gonna save the poor blighter, but rest assured, I will. Somehow.

UPDATE: 30 September 2008

I have just over 15k written on Kace’s story, and added another 5k to Vezien’s story this month. So I’m very close and will be getting to my 21k today.

*pats herself on the back*

Check the board for details!

Keep them doggies rolling. Or heads or anything else rolling in your story. What to write about today? Hmmm. Well, I unfortunately spent the week mourning my grandfather so no writing got done. Today though I’m back in the saddle. I’m nearing the end of the story and working my way to the final conflict. I’d love to finish this by the end of the week but I need another 17K words and I can’t see that happening. It might if I can get some people to sprint with me. It helps me focus when there are other people doing it at the same time and I have to post the results of the time spent.

I loved Nano last year because when a friend of mine got ahead of my word count I knew I needed to bust my a** to get ahead of her. Maybe this was a two way street or maybe I’m the competitive one. Either way we both won Nano. Of course, what I’d written had to be completely hacked apart and rewritten, but it helped me realize who my characters were and the way I really wanted the story to go.

Has anyone tried word sprints? Set the timer for 30 minutes and don’t allow yourself to do anything but write? It works for me.

I had this nice long blog about writing challenges and goals and the computer ate it. So here’s the shortened version. Goals are good. Making short term goals for writing is awesome even if it’s just I want to write 1000 words. Challenges have sprung up all over the web. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50K words in the month of November. This challenge draws writers of all shapes and sizes. There’s also the 70 Days of Sweat. Write 1000 words a day for 70 days. These challenges exist as a way for the writer to be part of something larger. To get advice and encouragement from other writers.

What motivates you? What goals make your writing stronger? Have you participated in a Challenge?

I officially gave myself the month off from all writing endevors, including my blogs. However, I’m back and going to get right back on the wagon. So anyone have any ideas for what you all want to hear about? If you have a chance Paperback Writer has an amazing set of articles and links for when everyone was away at the National RWA Conference in San Francisco. So what have you done with your summer?

I have a tricky surname.
A rare one, but it freaks people out when they need to pronounce it, or, God forbid, spell it.

So I am looking for a pen name.

It’s difficult. Really difficult. So I thought I’ll blog about it.
(Hey, it’s Saturday afternoon and I’m bored!)

My first name is Silke (that’s Silk-eh, not Silky, but I don’t really mind being called Silky. If you spell me as Silka I’m going to throw bricks at you. K? I’m not a damned chocolate bar! (Milka)) and I don’t want religious overtones (no Angelo / St.Anything / SanWhatever / Demonico or anything of that nature.)
I don’t want initials. (If I do that, then I can just drop my first name altogether)
No surnames starting with S. (I do not want to end up with the monogram SS.)
I thought about a middle name, but do not want a middle initial.
It should flow naturally.
It shouldn’t feel contrived, but shouldn’t be too common either. (Thank you, but I don’t want to be Silke Jones.)
It should have rhythm.
I want it to be easily spellable.
I want it to be easily pronounced.

Yeah, I know. Picky, picky.

So far I keep looking at Silke DiMarco, Silke DiMatteo, Silke DiSabatino… things like that. (Yeah, I like the way the Di adds to the ryhthm and flow of the name.)
It’s driving me nuts!

Any suggestions will be most welcome!

A few years ago, a critique partner suggested I give the YA market a try. She said I had a youthful voice and it came through in my writing. Now since I loved writing the hot stuff as much as the sweet stuff, it took me a little bit to think about what she said. Then all of a sudden, I had this idea about a teenage sorceress written in diary format that I knew would work as a young adult tale. I wrote it, and found it was much fun for me to write as the grown up stuff .

Now as a teenager myself, I read a lot of Judy Blume. I loved the fact that she didn’t shy away from the taboo subjects, like teenage sexuality. In most of her teenage geared books, with the exception of Forever, sex was mentioned, but the main characters just didn’t do it. Her main characters were very real to me because of this. Because they went through all the same emotions I went through. Currently, I’m reading her Fudge and Peter books to my son now, which are geared towards younger kids, and I’m happy to see that the work still holds up. It’s as much fun for me to read now as it was when I was a kid.

I think I was about sixteen when I discovered the work of Christopher Pike. His teenage paranormal tales were fantastic and I still love reading them. The Remember Me series written from the POV of a teenage girl ghost are all fantastic reads. Maybe that’s why all of my young adult tales seem to lean more towards the paranormal, because reading his stuff inspired me to go that route.

My current project is actually inspired by my son, PJ. The little man asked me why I never write anything that he’d want to read. I told him about my uncompleted manuscript about a teenage boy vampire slayer, and he said that would only be fun to read on Halloween. Leave it to PJ to be so honest and blunt . Then I got to thinking about what PJ likes. He loves space, science, rockets and wants be a rocket scientist when he grows up. So, I came up with an idea for a Science Fiction Young Adult Romance with an alien princess heroine and a fourteen year old hero, who like PJ, wants to be a rocket scientist when he grows up, and I told the idea to my son. He loved it. We read the first chapter together after I completed it, and PJ loved it too. He even gave me some great suggestions.

I really think the key to writing a great young adult tale is to not overload with slang, but still keep the attitude young. And really a great young adult tale is something that people of all ages will enjoy. Just look at Pixar Studios and their movies. Yep, they are animated and generally geared towards kids, but hubby and I have seen all the Pixar movies at the theater and loved all of them, even the ones that came out before we had our son. That’s what I want to do with my writing. Write a fun tale set on Earth and worlds beyond that transcends the age boundaries. I hope I’ll get there, because if I do, I can get one or more of my tales published .

I like gadgets. Any gadget.

Therefore I tend to like software, too. So what do I use?

I use Word to write (2003, I can’t stand the 2007 version), or Open Office Writer. I like both and they are interchangable for me.

I use Onenote to organize things. Anything. Snippets, pictures, links, descriptions, plots… you name it, it’s in my file somewhere. Love the thing. OneNote is part of the MS Office Suite, but if you don’t want to use anything Microsoft, Evernote is a very good alternative. (www.evernote.com) it does almost the same thing as OneNote. I heartily recommend it.

I’ve tried out various writer’s tools, like Writer’s Blocks, Writer’s Cafe and a bunch of others I can’t recall the name of. None of them did anything for me — except distract me from writing. So for me it’s a big thumbs down for them. Others may like them, swear by them, but after trying it… no. Not for me. At all. Too fiddly, too distracting and therefore unproductive.

My reference stuff tends to be books, not software.

What do you use?

Most of us have lives. Well, all of us do. Some lives are more hectic than others, but we all have things we should be doing. And things we shouldn’t. (Like me, typing this at work, looking over my shoulder the entire time. *cough*)
Anyway, I joined the SoCNoC Challenge after Valerie mentioned it.
I won.
Well. I mean, I got the wordcount. I’m not done yet.

It was 50k in June, and I did that, and then some. That leaves pretty much no time for other things.
On the upside, I nearly got the end in sight. (Well, another 20k and I will.) On the downside… This is book 5 or 6 in a series… and I kind of don’t have the others written yet! Eek.
At the same time, I’m trying to come up with a pen name. That’s been proving frought with strife. I cannot seem to make up my mind. Erk.

Another thing I’ve been doing… I’ve played “Mommy” to dragon eggs.
*blush*
These my current eggs: (They might be hatchlings, or adults by the time you see this.)

And here you can see all the ones I “grew”: http://dragcave.ath.cx/user/53176

So that’s my progress — what’s yours?
Ever joined a challenge? How did it go for you?