Wicked Wenches

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?

That’s allegedly what it means.
The Divine Breath.

I kind of like that.

My inspiration can be anything. Music, Movies, Books… overhearing some comment… anything, really.
I remember, many years ago, my boyfriend asked me how fast I can build a story. I said instantly. He didn’t believe it.
I said okay, give me a keyword.
He sat for a minute, then said, “Prawn cocktail.” A smug grin on his lips, too!
I took less time than he thought about his keyword and the story was in my head. Boom. Just like that. I told him the outline, too. And it all started with a waitress tipping a prawn cocktail all over a guy’s expensive suit… (I wrote half that story, too.)

The thing is, inspiration can come from anywhere, and it can strike anywhere, any time. I seriously need a waterproof pen and pad, because I always end up with them when I’m in the damn bathtub! Or on the loo… *roll eyes*

Sometimes you have a character pop in your head, other times a scene, a piece of dialog, the view out of the window from your heroine’s house. And sometimes… sometimes that’s enough to spark a whole book.

Writing is a funny thing. First we have to find an idea, then create a cohesive plot, then write words that bring that original idea to life. Not only that, but we must struggle to keep ourselves writing. There are many things that can pull us down, our personal lives, the people in our lives, our finances, our day jobs, the very thing that made us write in the first place…the words. Sometimes they won’t flow. Sometimes it feels like we’ll never write again. Or maybe it’s just me. Battling with an unknown illness is driving me crazy. I want to write, but I don’t feel well which makes it hard to write. There are other times when life is pressing in on me from all directions and I know there is time in there to write, but I don’t feel like it. So what is one writer to do with her expanding drought?

Inspiration comes in many forms. Quotes are good and sometimes enough to drag us back into writing. Challenges, like Nano and 70 Days of Sweating, are geared toward putting your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard (BICHOK). Inspirational writing books, such as Bird by Bird, On Writing, and the one I recently read Rejection, Romance, and Royalties, can kick an author back in gear. Taking a course or reading a craft book can also help kickstart your MS. But the thing I find most inspiring is to read. After all what made us want to be an author in the first place. Money? Fame? I don’t think so, if so, I’m sorry to ruin the illusion. It could happen and I hope it does happen for you, but keep your mind open. Reading books, living inside another character’s world, feeling, seeing, experiencing everything she does. It’s exhilarating. Maybe you have a keeper that you read over and over or maybe a new novel by someone you’ve never read, either way the writing can inspire you to move forward with your own idea. To explore the rich spendor that is your own imagination. To bring to life, a character so real that you want her to be your best friend or so stimulating you want him to sweep you off your feet not your heroine. Remembering why we write and drawing on that is some of the best inspiration I’ve found.

What inspires you?

There are a bunch of quotations I like. I’ll share.

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.  ~James Michener

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov

Easy reading is damn hard writing.  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.  ~Emme Woodhull-Bäche

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.  ~English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University

Every writer I know has trouble writing.  ~Joseph Heller

Writer’s block is a disease for which there is no cure, only respite.  ~Laurie Wordholt

A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.  ~Baltasar Gracián

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.  ~Lord Byron

What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.  ~Burton Rascoe

If I’m trying to sleep, the ideas won’t stop.  If I’m trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness.  ~Carrie Latet

The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my typewriter keys.  ~C. Astrid Weber

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.  ~Sinclair Lewis

I hope you like them!

(We normally agree on Weekly Topics to blog on, but I got bored…) Anyway. I always have a ton of different characters running around in all manner of different settings.It gets tricky telling them apart and not losing track of some secondary character somewhere along the line.

So here is what I do: (I use OneNote, but different pads/binders will work for this too)

• I have a tab with the name of the hero. Here I note down all his specifics. Birthday, Place of Birth, Age, Family connections, Friends, Appearance… things like that.
• I have a second tab for the heroine, organized the same way.
• A third lists all the secondary characters and what their purpose is (I often end up culling some of them, but it helps to keep track of them.) I also note any specifics (older / younger brother of XYZ etc) against their names. I wouldn’t want to have one start as a school friend and then later discover they met in college.
• I have a sheet with place names, areas, relevance which I (try to!) link with the names of the characters so I know who is where and uh.. when. Which brings me to the next bit.
• A tab for the timeline, where I list - Chapter by Chapter - when things happen. i.e. If Chapter 3 starts on Thursday morning, then I can’t have Chapter 4 start on the previous Monday. Well. I could, but unless it’s a time travel novel… it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
• I have a reference tab, where I put snippets, books (title / page numbers), web links etc.
• I keep a tab with Chapter info, page counts etc.

So that’s the basics. I expand on all of those, usually a lot, but those are my basics.
Hope it helps someone.

Since the ladies so nicely elaborated, I’ll do the same.
Why do I write paranormals… hmm. I blame Anne Stuart. It’s all her fault.
Way back when, I got my hands on “Night of the Phantom” and I practically devoured it. (Which reminds me that I have to re-read that one.)
That got me started on paranormals. Then I read Tanya Huff’s Blood series and that got me started on vampires. I love em to bits, blood and death and all. I wrote vampires in a time when everyone went “Vampires don’t sell”. Friends of mine wrote them too, told the same thing. It never stopped us.
As a result I know way too much about death and dying.
Today, a vampire romance is nothing out of the ordinary. Take Christine Feehan for instance. Her Carpathians are essentially vampires, dressed up a little differently. Still vampires though.
You have Sherri Kenyon and her Dark Hunters – they’re also vampires. In a sense. Again, dressed up differently, with a different slant and a different history but alas… a rose by any other name – is still a rose.
Today, I’ve moved on from the vamps. My critters are different, they don’t fit with the monsters, yet in a sense that is what they are. Still big bad and not domesticated though. You wouldn’t want one of them living in your basement.
Or maybe you do.
As for why… You think I know the answer to that? The bad guys turn me on, that’s all there is to it. I guess the paras are badder than your average biker dude, or maybe not.
I’ve read some pretty hefty bad guys before that didn’t come equipped with a set of very sharp teeth.
I write because I have to write. I can’t not write, I’d go insane. Certifiably so.
So I do what keeps me sane and put pen to paper… hopefully someone will like it and then maybe you get to read it too.