Welcome to the Shadows

Regular Schedule

2011-11-03T10:44:00.003-05:00

This is a biggie for me.

One, we are three days into November, which means National Novel Writing Month. Again. Since starting in 2006, I have successfully completed a 50,000-word novel in the month of November a grand total of one time. That was back in 2006. I'd like to change that this year. Currently, I'm off to a good start. I hope to keep it up for the next 26 or so days.

Two, I'm still trying to revise my novel that I've trying to revise for way long than I should be trying to revise it. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I know that once I submit my novel to an agent and/or an editor there will still be more revisions. I understand this. I try to tell myself this on a regualr basis as a way to encourage me to get through my revisions faster. And yet, I can't seem to move on until I feel that what I'm working on is perfect right now. It may not be perfect later. In fact, it most likely won't be, especially not once I get an agent and/or editor involved. But for now, I need to make it as perfect as I can.

Three, in the realm of wanting to move from being an amature I-write-when-I-feel-like-it kind of person to I'm-a-professional, I want to create a blog schedule and stick to it. We'll see how that goes. Currently, I have one or two blog post ideas I'd like to write. I just need to decide if I want to post them somewhat together or if I want to try separating them into the first two posts of my new schedule.

So. Scheduling. So I know I should stick to a Monday to Friday schedule, even if I only pick one of those days and post. Why? Because most people read blogs during the week instead of on the weekend. Or if that's not when they're being read, that's at least when they're being written and posted on other blogs. I have a couple blogs I like to read during the week when I get the time, but with points one and two above, I don't always get time to read them. Add to that my two kids, one of which is still nursing, and I have even less time.

What I'd like to do is post every Sunday. I know that seems to be the least likely day to post on blogs, which is why I like that day. Because my kid doesn't only eat Monday through Friday, he needs to eat on the weekends too. So in that regard, I think it'd be nice to have a regualr update on Sunday for those who might be in a similar position as me. If nothing else, for those who only read blogs during the week, it'l be waiting Monday morning for them.

One other factor is that I tend to write blog posts when I'm thinking about them/ when I feel inspired rather than writing them at a specific time. One nice thing about having the iPad is that I can write notes in the Note program when I'm thinking about them, then copy and paste them to the blog at a set schedule. Or I can figure out how to post-date blog posts, so I can write it when I"m thinking about it, then set it to post at a later time. We'll see. I'll probably go with the first option since I'm a little more comfortable with it.

So.

I have a lot on my plate right now.

But I have a plan.

Let's hope I can make this work.

Cosplay

2011-08-30T08:13:00.004-05:00

Disclaimer: I've never cosplayed before. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't settle on a costume to make.

I was reading this post about cosplaying characters other than slave Leia and got to thinking.

For instance, I love cosplay but have never made a costume because I didn't know what to make. I was never interested in being another slave Leia, but didn't want to be a stormtrooper either.

But then I've always wanted to make a Sailor Moon/Jupiter costume and try to get my husband to be Tuxedo Mask. More specifically, I'd like to create a Princess Moon costume from the live action TV series just because I think that one looks the best. But since I have brown hair like Sailor Jupiter and. My favorite color is green, I think it'd be easier to create an Eternal Sailor Jupiter costume. Especially since I got white boots needed for an Eternal costume on Dale after Halloween last year.

Or to do a Rukia/Ichigo combo. Since my husband has the "orange" hair.

Of course I was also considering playing one of the girls from Star Trek's Mirror Universe just because my husband picked up the pin for it while he was in Japan and I think it looks better than any of the other pins. So go figure.

It was brought up in the comments section that girls dress up as slave Leia or other outfits that focus n sex appeal to help acquire a mate. It's probably true. I was just never one of them. (What with not cosplaying and not going to a convention until after I was married and all.) in fact, I think I'm the opposite of these mate baiters.

Before I got married, I dressed fairly conservatively. It wasn't until after I got married that I started wearing shorter skirts, lower cut tops, etc.. One, I wanted to show off for my husband, who wanted to show off to everyone, basically saying, look how hot my wife is, aren't you jealous. And two, I was just more comfortable in my own body.

But then I always admired the girls who dressed as slave Leia, because I could never do that.

The Mind of a Child

2011-08-16T17:25:00.004-05:00

The mind of a child has to be a truly alien thing.

Take for instance my older son. His younger brother has recently started eating infant cereal. We've given it to him a couple times, sometimes he can't seem to get enough of it (like when my husband feeds him) and other time he wants nothing to do with it (like when I feed him ). So when we got home from our walk today, I set the youngest on the floor so i could take care of some stuff in another room. While I was out, I heard my oldest giggling, so I thought nothing of it.

When I got back, there were cereal flakes everywhere. It was like it had snowed in that one section of the living room. The floor had enough flakes for our son to draw in. The blanket the baby was laying on was covered in flakes. So was the baby. And after picking up the baby, I was covered in cereal flakes too.

The oldest had this big smile on his face, showed me the box of cereal, and might've even said, "Baby more," which is his way of saying the baby's hungry and wants to eat. He just didn't understand why mommy got so upset when he was trying to be helpful.

While in college, my husband studied psychology and one of the things they talked about was how up until a certain age, the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the brain don't communicate with each other. And I was like, well, what does that mean? The best he could describe it was that children will do stuff without knowing why.

Like if our oldest son had better communication skills, I could ask him why he poured cereal all over the floor. He'd probably tell me, I don't know. And he truly wouldn't know.

Since my husband told me about this, I wondered what it would be like to live this way. Sure, there are those rare adults that either by some genetic defect or brain damage, the right and left hemispheres of their brains don't communicate with each other.

But what would it be like if a whole society maintained this disconnect into maturity? How would their society be different than ours? And, more importantly, how would it be similar?

It's one of the reasons I like writing speculative fiction. You can take something from the real world like this, and see how a fictional society would change with it.

To My Kitty

2011-07-22T08:27:00.006-05:00

Dear Kitty:

I do not like your house guests, kitty cat.
I do not.
I do not like them of the flying variety.
Nor of the crawling variety.
I do not like it when they land on my head.
Now I need a shower, yes I do.
I do not like it when they poop on my pillow.
Now I need to wash it, yes I do.
I do not care if you're stuck in the bathroom
while I get your guests to leave.
I do not.

Say, I do like it when your house guests return home.
Yes, I do.

Kitty, kitty when will you learn
I do not like your house guests anywhere?
Not in my living room.
Not in my dining room.
Not in my hallway.
Not in my kitchen.
I do not like them anywhere.

Perched on a box.
Flying above my head.
Stuck in my hair.
I do no like them anywhere.

Kitty, kitty
I do not care
How much you meow.
How much you beg,
Plead,
Yowl.
I will not let you out of the bathroom
Till your guest is safe at last.

Say, kitty cat
I do like it when your house guests
Can be caught.
Can go home.
Can be free.

***

Sorry, I read Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham to my two-year-old yesterday, so it's been stuck in my head.

It doesn't help that my kitty's had such a fondness for bringing in house guests lately. The most recent being a bat last night and another bird this morning.

This years totals include:
3 bats
6 birds - 4 nestlings, 1 fledgling, 1 adult
2 chipmunks
2 rabbits

I think these last two were brought in because the heat wave we were having finally broke. He brought in a chipmunk last Sunday morning. (Which made me forget to grab my friend's son's birthday present. That wasn't a big because we just got him his first d20 as a stand in gift.) Then we had such a high heat index with it being up in the 100s to 110s (I can't say for certain since I didn't pay that close attention) that our kitty lounged in the air conditioning with the rest of us. Last night was his first chance to get back outside.

I love my kitty.

I just wish he didn't have such a fondness for bringing in guests.

And I know at one point I told my husband it wouldn't be so bad if our kitty ate some of the animals he caught, but I think I've changed my stance on that too. Especially when we got back from the drive-in and had to mop our floor.

Of course in the middle of mopping the floor and trying not to throw up from the blood, I thought of my vampire novel where Ayako finds her first dead body in the lounge car. In the original draft I had it that she didn't throw up. After all, it's just a dead body, right? And since she was a biology student, she had her share of dead bodies she needed to dissect.

Then I was mopping up the blood.

This was after my husband told me not to look, that he would throw away the parts. All I needed to do was mop the floor.

And maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was once a cute bunny that now had it's entrails strewn about my dining room floor (at least the kitty ate in the right room and didn't take his dinner onto the carpet or hide it in the basement), but yeah, now I just need to think about all the little details of that night to conjure up that same reaction.

When looking at the body, I had Ayako think of it as a painting. And to an extent, it is a work of morbid art. But then, I was thinking, you know, if I can get this sick to my stomach over one little bunny, how is Ayako gonna react to a human? Yeah, about the only thing she has going for her is that she doesn't have to worry about cleaning up the mess.

So, yes kitty, thank you for giving me those experiences to make my writing more realistic.

Take a Trip Down Memory Lane

2011-05-16T01:30:00.002-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

Going through old college papers, my husband found the first short story I wrote for my first creative writing class. The most surprising part is that, eight years later, I don't think it's that's bad.

It's also based on the first ever D&D game I played. So these last few days have been a trip down memory lane as I've been trying to collect all the stuff I had written about this character and getting it in one location. Like I'll find one of the many character sheets I had for her and go, wow, I never knew she had that. Or why was she obsessed with this black crystal ball? And the list goes on.

For a while now I've been thinking about turning her story into a novel. And I remember a lot of crazy stuff happening in the campaign, but looking over her character sheets and reading old story notes, character goals, and equipment lists, it's a lot more random than I remember. But, unlike a lot of other characters I created for role-playing games, this one actually underwent a character arc which I highlighted in the short story I wrote about her.

So it's been fun. But now I'm also just little obsessed with finding all the game notes, story notes, and character sheets for her. Which is kind of like an adventure unto itself when this box has some papers, that box has other papers, this notebook has some notes interspersed with math and biology notes, that notebook has a list of this one character's many alternate personas, each with their own goals and such, and that crate burried in the basement has multiple versions of her character sheet.

[Sometime later.]

I found more story notes, campaign notes, and character notes for the aforementioned obsession and it's like one giant puzzle, trying to piece everything together. It's also quite fun.

What I Like About YA

2011-01-21T17:12:00.002-06:00

This post is cross-posted from the Romance Divas message board.

I like reading and writing YA. I think mostly it's because there wasn't a huge YA market when I was a YA so I didn't really get into reading them until I was in late high school/college. One of the reasons I like reading YA is because the pacing seems to be much faster. In high school I read a lot of historical romances and high fantasy and the pacing in those books started to seem really slow to me. I wanted to get to the "story" (or perhaps action is a better word) rather than slogging through pages of description and history. I know a lot of people really like that kind of stuff, but I just got really sick of it.

So when my friend lent me Christopher Pike's Last Vampire series (recently repackaged/retitled as Thirst), I couldn't put it down. It was the first vampire novel I read, probably the first YA novel I read, and I wanted more. Sometime in college I found Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' novels and have been a fan of hers ever since.

Occasionally, I like to read adult novels, but for a while I only liked reading about characters my age. One of the first adult novels I read outside of the historical romance Nd high fantasy I read in high school and the YA I started reading in college was Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong. I was instantly hooked because the main character was 23, which happened to be how old I was at the time.

Now I'm not as picky about character age so much as my experiences while I was the main character's age. Like I can't get into most of the books about 30-something's who are still looking for love because I got married when I was 20. But I can relate to all the teen girls who are obsessing over their souk mates in YA fiction. There are times when I make exceptions, but mostly it'll be because I want to read about a certain type of character or I'm looking for books that are somewhat similar to my WIP. Also, most of the time a great character and a fast-paced plot will trump character age/experience. One example being the Queen Betsy series by MaryJanice Davidson.

I also like to write YA because I think that's the time where people go through the most changes in life. Especially at the age of 17 (which most of my characters happen to be), you're writing about someone who is practically an adult, wants to be an adult, but has none of the responsibilities of being an adult or even fully aware of what it means to be an adult. There's something about that dynamic that I'm drawn to as a reader and as a writer.

Reading as a Writer

2010-12-19T09:59:00.001-06:00

This is cross-posted from the Absolute Write message board.

When I choose a book to read, I'll look for things like genre, type of main character (shapeshifter, spy, pirate, etc.), whether it's an author/series I've read before, and point of view.

While I'm reading a book for the first time, I hope to be engaged by the characters, their situation, and the world they inhabit that I don't notice little details. Afterwards though, I like to page through the book and/or think about what I read, sometimes even reread passages to get a feel for how the author handled things like chapter length, opening hook, major turning points, character backstory and description, whether each chapter ends with a hook or not, etc.. These are also the same things that can pull me out of a story while I'm reading it.

Some other things that can pull me out of a story are unbelievable character actions/reactions to a situation, especially when it contradicts with the character's backstory, too much and too closely repeating one or two details about the main character while not including other details about him/her, really short or really long chapters, especially when the really long chapters don't have any scene breaks, and when every chapter has to end with a hook.

Some of these things will make me not enjoy a book as much as I could have, while others will annoy me so much that it'll just take me a really long time to finish reading the book.

As a writer, I just try to incorporate the things I like into my fiction while avoiding the things I don't like. When I get stuck, or what to know how an author pulled off one of these techniques well, I try to analyze their work to see how they did it so I can try the same in my own writing. I think that's why it's important for authors to read non-fiction books about writing techniques and fiction books to see practical applications of that technique.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-01T05:43:00.003-06:00

Well, it's December 1st already. I can barely believe it.

Pretty soon Christmas will be here, then the New Year, then my second baby will be born.

Just this last week my husband and I were wrapping Christmas presents and I was commenting how my belly wasn't so big the last time I was pregnant and wrapping presents, when my baby was due in April and not February. I needed my husband to help cut the wrapping paper just because my belly was so big I couldn't reach the other side, and even leaning over as far as I could, I could only reach about the middle of the paper.

Something about wrapping presents just reminded us how close we are to having our second baby. When I got really sick with morning sickness this past summer, it seemed like it would never end. Now I'm 29 weeks along. It's kind of exciting because my son was born at 37 1/2 weeks, so we'll see how close this one makes it to 40 weeks.

I didn't get much work done for NaNo this year. In fact, it was my worst year. But on the non-writing front, I made a lot of headway in cleaning my house. It's not perfect, but better than it's probably ever looked. Plus, my husband hung our stockings last night.

We also had Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's family at our place (which was the main reason to get all the cleaning done). Seeing all the tables and chairs crammed into the living room reminded me of holidays at my grandma's where there are so many people you can't see the floor. What can I say, I like the holidays. I'm just glad Thanksgiving's over and someone else is hosting Christmas.

Japanese Schools, Part 2

2010-10-28T06:30:00.000-05:00

And here's the follow up.

I taught in Iwadeyama in Miyagi Prefecture, which is a pretty small farming community in north central Japan. So that had all the small town politics you could imagine.

I also taught in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which is comparable to many American cities. Not too small, but not too big either, like Tokyo or Osaka. Yamaguchi's on the southern tip of Honshu. And Yamaguchi city has a population of about 140,000, which is the smallest of all Prefectural capitals. It's also pretty close to Fukuoka (a major shopping center), Shimonoseki (which has an amazing fireworks display in August), and Hiroshima.

Another thing I wanted to mention was that nearly all schools require a school uniform. From The first week in October to the first week in June they wear their winter uniform, which is a long sleeve shirt or a jacket and skirt for girls and pants for boys. In June, they switch to their summer uniform which is a short sleeve shirt. There's also a lot of variations on uniforms, like a lot of different styles.

High school students tend to wear really short skirts too. Like when I taught in Miyagi, it was very fashionable for the high school girls to wear their skirt hiked up so high that it barely covered their butt (like it'd be maybe an inch below their shirt) and showed off the gym shorts they wore underneath. I saw at least three different color gym shorts, so my guess was a different color for each grade, but I didn't teach at that school, so I'm not sure.

Also, they typically don't have locker/changing rooms, and when they need to change into their gym uniform (which is the same for boys and girls), they usually just change in the classroom (boys and girls). The junior high school I taught at in Miyagi was kind of unique in that it had "locker rooms" for the students, a separate boys' and girls' one for each class. But, they weren't like the ones in America because if you looked out the window from the teachers' lounge you could see them. So the rule was just don't look out the window. But from an American standpoint, it seemed rather open and not at all private to me, but I would take that to having to change in hue classroom. But then, as you could probably guess from the fashionable high school uniforms, they typically wore at least their gym shorts under their regular school uniform.

Likewise, they rarely had lockers in the classrooms and didn't have any in the hallways, so most students would keep their book bag next to their desk with them. Which can be kind of annoying when you have thirty-some students crammed into a room that should only fit twenty or so. You just have to be careful not to trip over someone else's bag.

Another thing is that Japan doesn't have indoor heating, except in Hokaido. So the individual classrooms will have a space heater. So if you sit next to the heater in winter, you will be quite toasty. But if you sit on the opposite side of the room, then you'll be pretty cold. So some students, mainly girls because of their skirts, will take a blanket to school with them to cover their legs during the day.

And getting back to the school uniforms before I forget again. Not all schools require a uniform. My husband taught at a junior high school where they didn't require one, but most of the students chose to wear school uniforms anyway. Though instead of everyone wearing the same uniform, he said it looked like friends went shopping together to pick out matching uniforms. So there was a wide variety of school uniforms there, but groups of students tended to wear the same one. Except a couple students didn't wear a uniform at al.

And, since often times the uniforms are all the same, the only/main way girls can express themselves is by their hairstyle. So you can see a lot more elaborate hairstyles in Japan than you can see in the US. This might mostly be a junior high school thing though. But if you ever want to change your hairstyle, you can only do it over one of the breaks.

As far as I know, the breaks include Golden Week (a week long in May and corresponds with the Emperor's birthday), summer break (which I think is around July/August and lasts a month), and winter break (which is also a month long and is in December/January). Then there's a break at the end of the year, for about a month, that's in March. Their school year goes from the beginning of April to the beginning of March.

Also, I wanted to add that their breaks usually correspond with the end of a term. And at least for summer break they are usually given homework to do. But I'm not sure about winter break.

That's about all I can think of for now.

Japanese Schools, Part 1

2010-10-28T06:23:00.003-05:00

So once again in response to topics over at the NaNo message boards, I have some more stuff that might be of interest here. If nothing else, I get to talk more about my experiences in Japan.

So this first post are my answers in response to another user's questions, which is why some of the info may seem a little disjointed.

I was never a student in Japan, but I taught ESL there for about a year, so hopefully I can help answer some questions.

I only taught Monday through Friday, but there were a lot of other activities that took place on Saturdays. Like Sports Day and Culture Festival.

I worked from 8 am to 4 pm. During that time, there were six classes. I think the first was around 8:20 am. There was lunch. And at the end of the day, all the students had to help clean their classroom. Then most students had an extracurricular activity that started around 3. At my school, busses left at 3 then would come back to pick up kids after their activities and leave at 4.

Also, students don't change classes, but the teachers do. So the kids will always have the same classroom and same classmates for the year. And they eat lunch in their classroom.

Elementary school is six years, or US equivalent of grades 1 to 6. Junior high school is three years, or US grades 7 to 9. And high school is three years, or US grades 10 to 12. Each grade starts at 1 for each school. So a junior in America would be a year 2 high school student in Japan. Usually there are more than one classes per grade, so they are usually called 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc. depending on how many students there are in each grade. Also, this class number is posted outside the classroom.

Because Japan is very homogenous, non-Japanes people tend to stick out. A lot. I don't know how it is for a foreign student to go there, but as a foreigner in general it can take a lot to get used to, especially if you're used to someplace with a lot of diversity, Like the US.

Foreigners, or at least Americans, are expected to be very outgoing, be loud, and have very animated features while talking. So, as a foreigner, if you say, "Ohaiyo gozaimasu," you're expected to say it loud enough that the entire room can hear you, even if a Japanese person could just say it in a normal voice or even quietly.

Vampire Questionnaire

2010-10-27T12:08:00.003-05:00

This was originally posted over at the NaNo message board, but I thought it would be useful to post here as well.

This doesn't cover everything there is to know about my vampires, but it's a pretty good start.

1. Are your vampires "alive" or "dead?"

My vampires are very much dead. The world allows for "living vampires," but I haven't dealt with them yet.

2. Can your vampires eat or drink? How about sleep?

They can't eat or drink except blood. They don't need to sleep, but they need rest because their minds are still active and resting/sleeping allows their minds to process everything, same as it does for humans.

3. It's pretty standard that sunlight and vampires go hand in hand. Is sunlight fatal to your vampires? Does it just bother them? DO THEY SPARKLE IN IT?

Sunlight is not fatal to my vamps, it just weakens their vampire powers/abilities. Most newer camps tend to stay indoors during the day just because the sun bothers their eyes and because they're pretty weak. But the older and/or more powerful vampires don't have as much of an issues with the sun because they have enough extra vampire power to make the sun's effects not seem like a weakness.

4. More myths! Do your vampires have to be invited in to a private residence? Do they have shadows? How about reflections? Are they harmed by Christian objects like crosses or holy water?

They don't have to be invited in. They do have shadows and reflections. And they can be harmed by any religious symbol, Christian or otherwise, so long as the person wielding the religious symbol knows that the vampire is in fact a vampire, believes in vampires, and believes that holding out a religious symbol will actually protect him/her from the vampire. It's possible to kill a vampire with a religious symbol, just not that likely because most people don't have that high of a belief in all three categories for it to be effective.

5. Blood. All vampires need it. Do your vampires drink human blood or animal blood? Can they drink both?

Yes, vampires can drink both human and animal blood and survive. But their preferred blood source is that of other supernaturals (like shapeshifters, witches, etc.).

6. IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE...NO, IT'S A FLYING VAMPIRE! ...Can your vampires fly or levitate? Do they have any other "special" powers? Are the super fast? Super strong? Telekinetic?

Most newly created vampires are nothing more than ghouls, who only care about getting their next meal. They barely even have a human consciousness. If they survive long enough they can eventually become more vampire-like. I don't know what their abilities are like because I haven't really worked with them much, but they are faster and stronger than humans. Plus they're dead, so not much can hurt them.

My strongest vampire is stronger and faster than other vampires, can "melt" into her surroundings, and has the power of her Beast (which I don't really know what that is yet either). And these are while the sun's at it's brightest. She also has some other abilities that I have written down but can't think of at the moment.

7. Speaking of dhampirs, does your novel have any? Oh, and for those of you that don't know, dhampirs are half human, half vampire.

No. Even though they could potentially exist in the world.

8. Okay, I gotta know. Can your vampires reproduce? Are they fertile? Can they "mate" with humans?

No. With the exception of "living vampires," but then I don't think those are really vampires to begin with.

9. Hey, you're almost done! Anyway, what do your vampires look like? Any defining characteristics? Are they more Count Orlok than Lestat?

The main characteristic of my vampires is that they all have ruby/blood red eyes. Also, they have a severe allergy to wood, so they tend to avoid things like toothpicks, wooden chopsticks, stakes, and pretty much anything else that contains wood.

10. Yay, last question! How were your vampires made? Virus? Evil warlock? Can they bite people and turn them into vampires?

The original vampire was created by the Angel of Death. He figured since the other gods were creating their own supernaturals that he should be able to create his own. So the Angel of Death created the first vampire, who changed his wife into the second vampire. Then the first vampire got cocky and wanted a priestess for his mistress even though she was married and had kids. But he changed her into a vampire anyway. When she changed her children into vampires, because she didn't want to spend eternity without them, the first two vampires tried to kill her. She killed them instead. Now she's the most powerful vampire. And her kids are responsible for making all the other vampires, except for one (my MC).

In order to become a vampire, you have to die (usually quite violently too), and loose over half your blood in the process. This is from a vampire trying to feed on you and/or kill you. Then either that same vampire or another vampire has to give you enough of their blood to make up for the blood you just lost. Since this severly weakens the vampire who gives you their blood, most are against actually doing this. Yes, my vampires would rather just let you die than turn a dying human into a vampire themselves.

Back to Revisions

2010-10-22T11:51:00.004-05:00

I'm like doing a posting marathon today or something, but these are just a couple things I wanted to add. And having a distracted toddler long enough to post some stuff isn't an everyday occurrence.

So here's another one cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

I'm getting back to revising my sci fi/urban fantasy. It's going to be difficult starting out because I'm switching two scenes around. That doesn't seem all that hard, but then I have to make all the scenes in-between and around those two scenes flow together. Plus I need to delete a character (which makes him happy since he'll be alive to hopefully come back in another book), and I'm hoping to give his important scenes to one of the antagonists (and the guy I'm deleting was a semi-love interest).

In my head it all sounds like a really good idea and a way to make a much stronger opening and story in general. But then the outline I had for my first draft also sounded pretty good in my head. So we'll see what happens. And we'll see how much I can get done before November.

Additional comments.

I'm just excited to be working on this story again. I've been wishy-washy with it all summer and now that it's almost time for NaNo, I'm gonna see if I can get it done before then. Or at least get a significant way through this set of revisions.

But then I have a pretty good motivational treat this time around.

Mature Themes and Writing YA

2010-10-22T11:25:00.004-05:00

These two posts are both cross-posted from the NaNoWriMo message board, with some addition comments.

The thread is about mature themes/topics in YA books and what readers can handle versus what writers can/should write. It's a long debate, especially with books like The Hunger Games trilogy where many readers, parents, and librarians were outraged at the violence of the trilogy, especially in Mocking Jay. I haven't read the books yet, but they're on my list. But then you have other books that have teen sex, drugs use, drinking, any number of things that some adults don't want/thinks teens to/should be exposed to.

Actually, I think the thread started as a rant, but as someone who writes YA, this interests me beyond the level of a rant.

So here's my first post.

Granted I'm no longer in the YA age range, but I still love reading and writing YA. I read YA a lot more now then when I was actually in high school just because the YA market has become it's own entry since then. Before I would have to look for books in the adult section and hoped they had younger characters or just deal with it.

But now YA has exploded as a market, and in some cases it's more popular than the adult market in the same genre. So it seems like a lot of authors are crossing over, meaning they're writing the same genre, but now for both markets.

The only problem I have is that it seems that some of these authors need a formula in order to write YA. Like the last book I read, it seemed like the author made a checklist of all these things that are in YA books, and therefore she needed to use them in her own writing.

Her philosophy seemed to be:
Every teen drinks, unless the parental units are around.
Teens do drugs, like pot and cocaine.
Every teen has sex.
If you can't have sex, you'll masturbate.
Even if the character's in a steady relationship, there still needs to be a love interest that's the new student at school.

That's all I can think of for now, but it just really annoyed me.

I think as an older person trying to write YA I'm more sensitive to some of the stuff that older YA writers feel like they have to include. Mainly because when I was in high school, not everyone was drinking or smoking or doing illegal drugs or even having sex. And sometimes I feel that older YA writers feel like they have to include these things otherwise they won't be true to the YA market, when instead it feels like they're writing stereotypes of teens.

And my second.

When I was in high school I didn't want to read about characters swearing, drinking, having sex, etc because I didn't do any of those things. So a lot of the fiction I wrote at the time was anti-swearing/drugs/sex and it seemed like I went out of my way to avoid those topics in my writing.

But now, ten years later, I've learned a lot about writing, creating characters, and life in general. Now I don't have a problem writing about some high schoolers going to a party and drinking. I don't try to write how evil acohol is, even though I don't drink myself and would prefer my son didn't drink until he's 21. At the same time, I don't write it that every character drinks, has sex, does drugs, etc. It's not who I am now and it wasn't who I was in high school, so I think it's important to show that not everyone does these things, but I think it's more important to be true to the character.

Just like some people experience more "mature themes" at a younger age, some characters can and should experience those same things at a younger age. But just because some teens drink, smoke, do drugs, and have sex, that doesn't mean all teens do or that all teens should in writing either.

Finally, some additional comments.

Do I think that writing YA makes me obligated to write about teen sex/smoking/drug use/drinking/swearing? No. Just because it seems likes it's becoming the norm to write "edgy" YA doesn't mean I need to. That's like saying just be use I write adult fiction about a character in a romantic relationship, I need to include explicit sex scenes. (But that's a topic for a later blog post.)

Some people mention (not necessarily on that thread, but this is just what I've picked up around the blogosphere) that if you include sex/drinking/swearing, etc. you should be obligated to educate your readers on it. Like at another message board I go to, someone said if your teens are having sex, they need to have "safe" sex (which was suggested to them by their agent/editor). I have nothing wrong with that, but birth control still isn't 100% effective. You can extrapolate this into saying if your characters drink and drive, they need to get into an accident or get pulled over by the cops or something.

But other people say that the only obligation you have to your readers is to tell them a good story. You don't need to preach to them about the horrors of teen sex/drugs/drinking or anything else--whether that's your view or not.

To me, telling a good story is being true to my characters. Some of them drink, others don't. Some of them have sex, others don't. Just because I think writing young adult should be true to the young adult experience. Not every teen drinks. Not every teen smokes. Not every teen has sex. So why should all of my teen characters drink, smoke, have sex, etc.?

Inspiration and Procrastination

2010-10-22T11:20:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

If I can't focus on my writing for lack of ideas/inspiration I usually read (if I'm in a reading mood), or do a Google image search. Like lately I've had a couple ideas for different stories but nothing too solid, so I've done a couple image searches because looking at pictures helps inspire me. The downside is that it can be a huge time-suck too. So it's just a matter of finding the balance.

Reading is probably a better idea for inspiration because I think it serves double duty by helping you analyze others' writing too. But I have a hard time finding what I want to read or something that will interest me.

My problem now is that I have two stories I want to work on, but I want to keep one for NaNo and the other is a short story I want to finish before NaNo, and I have to work around my toddler's schedule. Which leaves me to write early in the morning before he gets up, during nap time, or after everyone goes to bed at night, and I just haven't found what time works best for me yet. (Part of that's also an excuse to procrastinate.)

NaNoWriMo and Pregnancy 2

2010-10-18T15:29:00.002-05:00

Here's another pregnancy related topic from the NaNo message board. This was posted on October 10 in the thread Anything and Everything About Giving Birth.

1. My delivery was painful, but I opted for the no drugs option. I don't know about nation-wide, but in my city (southern Minnesota) about 80% of women get an epidural, which is a shot in the spine to numb everything from the waist down. Lucky for me, the whole labor and delivery thing lasted only a couple hours.

2. I read that it's possible to know the gender as early as 12 weeks. However, most places do a 20 week ultrasound where you can learn the gender then. I haven't heard of anyone actually learning the gender before the 20 week ultrasound. 20 weeks is about 5 months.

3. Gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and eclampsia that I know of. (Note that this used to be called toxemia because they thought it came from a toxin.) These are all part of the same thing, just to different degrees. It starts with gestational hypertension, which is increased blood pressure while pregnant. That's what I had. And for the first part of my pregnancy my blood pressure was normal, then in the last couple months it started going up and up and up to where they had to induce me because that's the only way my blood pressure would go back down. Usually when the mother-to-be has this, shell give birth early. How early depends on how severe it is. I was induced two and a half weeks early, but I know someone who had pre-eclampsia and was induced a month early. Some symptoms include sudden swelling of hands, legs, feet, and especially the face. More severe symptoms are blurred vision and headaches (I think), and seizures. Actually, I suppose I don't know if this is fatal or not, but I do know that the doctors take it pretty seriously. Even thought I felt fine, I couldn't have the lights on, the shades drawn, or even the tv on, or a radio while Ii was in the hospital e they thought any of those things could lead to a seizure. And I had the mildest form of this possible. I also had to have bumper pads on my bed in case I did have a seizure.

4. Since I was induced, I knew the labor would be coming. I was annoyed that they wouldn't let me get up and walk around. I felt fine, but because of the IV and the magnesium drip I was on, they wouldn't let me get out of bed. I was glad mine was very short.

NaNoWriMo and Pregnancy 1

2010-10-18T12:15:00.002-05:00

For some reason there's a lot of threads on pregnancy over at the NaNoWriMo message board. That or I'm just more aware of all the pregnancy topics being that I'm over halfway through my second pregnancy. Either way, rather than repeating myself or just because I want to keep that information available here for other people, I'm going to cross-post my responses here. Since some of them are pretty long, I'll probably take a couple blog posts to do it.

This one was posted on October 18 in response to the thread Not knowing you're pregnant/pre-eclampsia.

The first thing with pre-eclampsia is that it starts with elevated blood pressure. For me, it didn't get above normal until I was around 30 weeks along or so. But even then, that wasn't enough to say I had pre-eclampsia.

From what I understand, a lot of women who don't know they're pregnant are on the heavier side to begin with. And the heavier your are, the less weight you're likely to put on while pregnant. And I'm pretty sure that some heavier people already have blood problems to begin with, so its not that uncommon for them to have higher blood pressure.

But having high blood pressure isn't enough to have pre-eclampsia. It's a symptom, but not the only one.

Other symptoms of pre-eclampsia include having headaches, seeing spots or having blurry vision, and swelling of your face, hands, and feet. So I'd imagine if someone came in with these symptoms, that a doctor might think to check if the woman is pregnant, but that also depends on what other conditions might share these symptoms.

Also, note that I'm not a doctor or any other type of medical personnel, just a woman who had gestational hypertension with my first pregnancy.

To determine if it's more than hypertension (high blood pressure), you have to do a protein test. For this test, they give you a large container where you have to keep all your urine for 24 hours (you also need to store the container in your fridge so the urine doesn't go bad). If you don't collect all the urine, then you have to start all over, so it's highly recommended you do it right the first time around. Once you have all the urine collected, you take it to the lab and they test it for proteins. There's something about pre-eclampsia that makes it so you can't properly process protein and that shows up in your urine. It also doesn't matter if you eat a lot of meat (have a high protein diet) or are vegetation and eat a low protein diet (like I do). (I asked about this, because I thought it might interfere with my results, but it doesn't.)

My protein test came up as negative for pre-eclampsia, but they still had me keep track of the other symptoms. I also didn't realize how much of a blimp I had become (like how swollen my face, hands, feet, and legs were) until after I had given birth and look at the birth pictures. My sister said I looked like a football player with how swollen I was.

If there is swelling, they'll suggest you go on bed rest and try to put your feet up whenever you sit down. For me, my "bed rest" was to lay down for six hours a day (in addition to sleeping at night) and this could be broken up into two hours, three times a day. They also suggested that I sleep with my feet up, which meant putting a pillow under my feet, which is a little uncomfortable when you can only sleep on your side. (Sleeping on your side only is for any pregnant woman more than 18 weeks along.)

Though just because the swelling goes down doesn't mean your blood pressure will go down. I was able to get some of the swelling down in my legs and feet, but my blood pressure still went up.

As to the differences between pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, I'm not really sure what they are. Eclampsia is more severe, but even with gestational hypertension, they still treated me as though I had eclampsia when I was in the hospital to give birth.

Actually, I think one of the biggest symptoms of eclampsia is the seizures. When I was in the hospital, they wouldn't let me watch tv, listen to music, open the window, or even turn on the lights brighter than a low lamp because they thought any of those things could give me a seizure, thus making it so I had eclampsia. They even put bumper pads on my bed and added an extra pad over the mattress to make it extra soft in case I did have a seizure.

With me, they had to induce labor because my blood pressure wasn't going down and they figured the only way it would go back down to a healthy level would be to get the baby out of my body. I was about 37 and a half weeks along. (But then 36 - 37 weeks is near-term, 38 - 40 weeks is term, and 41 - 42 weeks is post term.) I don't remember exactly what my blood pressure was, but whenever I told health care professionals what it was, they were pretty shocked/horrified by how high it was.

I don't know if there's really a length of time in which it goes from pre-eclampsia to eclampsia. I think it just depends on the woman and what are symptoms are.

I only had gestational hypertension and was induced about two and a half weeks early. I know know who had pre-eclampsia or maybe eclampsia (I didn't talk to her that much, only that when I said I only had gestational hypertension she was like oh, well that's nothing, which was kind of insulting to me because what I went through wasn't "nothing") who was induced a month early. He baby even had to spend time in an incubator whereas mine didn't.

If this were to go untreated, I don't know how long the baby could survive. But I'd imagine that a doctor or someone might get the idea to see if this woman is pregnant or not, be able to do a pregnancy test/ultrasound, and then get the woman induced if they were that afraid of her having eclampsia.

Depending on how good the hospital is (like how week equipped they are, whether they're in a large city or a small town, and whether they specialize in babies or not) depends on how long a child can survive. Like I heard about a baby surviving (I don't know how long) when it was born around 22 weeks, but it was connected to an incubator and various medical things to keep it alive. But that never would have happened at the hospital was in, because it's just smaller and not equipped to deal with a situation like that. Also, this story happened at one of the children's hospitals in the Twin Cities, which specializes in infants and children.

And if the induction doesn't work for a woman, depending on how severe the pre-eclampsia/eclampsia is, she may need to have an emergency C-section.

I don't know if I actually answered your question, but I hope you find something useful in my long post.

Point of View

2010-09-29T12:19:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted form the Romance Divas message board.

I write in both first person and third person. For me, it depends on what I want to convey in the story. If I want to show multiple character's viewpoints, I usually write in third. But if I want to limit my story to just one viewpoint, then I'll write in first.

For example, one of the young adult stories I'm working on is a romance and I wanted to include the heroine's, the hero's and the villain's points of view because I thought that would create more suspense for the story. Plus, I wouldn't have to rely on my heroine to resort to out-of-character ways for her to figure out if the hero is into her or not. Plus, my heroine has a supernatural ability that allows her to pass through the waking/real world and the dreamscape without realizing it and it sort of makes her crazy because she looses her grip on what's real and what's only a dram. But since I didn't want to confuse the reader with what's real and what's not, I can switch to another point of view, to someone who isn't going crazy.

In another young adult story I'm working on, my main character is completely obsessed over this guy. From her point of view, he's perfect. But I switch to other characters' points of view to show that he isn't as perfect as she makes him out to be, and that he could be a potential villain.

But the futuristic urban fantasy novel I'm working on is entirely in first person. My narrator thinks she knows about the world, but there's a lot of stuff that she doesn't know. So I can use her ignorance to show the world I've created to both her and the readers. Also, I felt if I told her story from multiple points of view that I would give away too much of the plot and take out that suspense element (which is the opposite of my young adult romance I mentioned above).

I also got started writing in first person because I had a difficult time with head hopping and never knowing whose point of view I was supposed to be in. By writing in first person, I could only write what this one character can see, hear, smell, touch, feel, do, etc. and I think it's helped me improve my writing. I'm equally comfortable writing and reading either third person or first person stories.

One of the other factors I keep in mind before deciding which point of view to write in is what genre I'm writing in. Most romances tend to be written in third person from the hero's and heroine's points of view, while urban fantasy tends to be written in first person. But then paranormal romance can be written in either, chick-lit is usually written in first, and science fiction romance can be in either, same with paranormal YA and mysteries.

I think the only point of view mesh up I don't particularly care for is multiple first person, where there are multiple point-of-view characters, but every one is narrated in first person. To me this creates what I call a campfire effect where everyone is sitting around a campfire, including the villain, recounting what happened to them. It annoys me because it just doesn't seem believable to me. But then I'm reading a story now that's in multiple first that doesn't bother me too much. The main problem I have is that all the characters' voices sound the same or at least very similar so it can be difficult to keep the different characters apart and tell which character's point of view I'm actually in. But then, I envy the author who can do multiple first really well because they manage to give each point-of-view character a distinct voice.

Update

2010-09-29T12:17:00.001-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I finally figured out how to post while using my iPad.

When Beginnings Don't Work

2010-09-17T13:54:00.003-05:00

This is cross-posted from this thread at Absolute Write.

I'm just getting back into editing one of my favorite manuscripts again just because I've been agonizing over the beginning. My beta reader suggested giving it a more action-y opening, so I wrote a new scene and tacked it on at the beginning. But the problem was just that, it felt tacked on. My original opening was also rather info dump-y, so I cut back on a lot of tha. But it still didn't feel very engaging to me. I mean, I like the scene and I like the characters, but that's because I already know who they are. I couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong with the opening, or how to it, so I stopped working on it for a while.

Then I read Kristen's blog post about killer openings and wondered if my opening was suffering from a similar problem. So I read her other posts on beginner mistakes, unsuccessful openings, and why she passed on sample pages. And I started really thinking about my opening and exactly what kind of problems I and my beta reader were having with it.

Anyway, I have a more action-y opening now, and one that I think will be more enticing to readers. All I did was take the last scene from chapter two and move it to the first scene in chapter one. I'll have to rearrange some of my earlier scenes around to make it fit, but I'm much happier with my beginning now. Plus, by switching these opening scenes around, I've added to my main character's motivation (which was another thing I was struggling with). And I actually want to work on it for a change, rather than just going, yeah, I really need to finish that.

I guess I'm just trying to say that I like agent blogs that talk about the rules and I like reading threads on message boards that talk about the rules. Because even thought I've been writing for a while now, and I even minored in creative writing at college, I'm still learning. I usually don't pay attention to the rules while I write, but reading other people's blogs and message board posts helps me understand why something I did didn't work so that I can fix it into something that does work.

Critiques

2010-09-17T13:24:00.003-05:00

Reading this thread at the Absolute Write Water Cooler reminds me of one of my creative writing classes in college where my husband said he didn't like what I wrote and thought it could have been a lot better, then proceeded to list all the things he didn't like about it and why. Then all the girls in our class were like, but you're her husband, aren't you only supposed to say nice things about her? And my husband was like, not if I actually want her to improve her writing.

I almost always show my writing to my husband first just because I know he won't sugar-coat anything. He's not afraid to tell me what sucks, what doesn't work for him, where I'm being lazy and not writing at my best, or where my MC is being too passive. He's also not afraid to tell me what he likes.

I can always go to him for brainstorming. And he's not afraid to tell me if something's really stupid. Though there've been time when he'll later tell me this really cool idea and I'll have to remind him that he thought it was stupid when I first mentioned it. Of course, he doesn't think it's stupid now.

What I'm Working On

2010-03-22T18:08:00.003-05:00

Well, I've been trying to revise my vampire novel (my '06 Nano), and it's starting to bite me in the butt. When I started, I did the chapters that were easiest to revise, which were chapters 1 and 2, and then chapters 20 to 25 (the ending). All I have left is chapters 10 to 12, and am having difficulties remembering when different events and character revelations happened. Really, I should just read through the first nine chapters, or at least the chapter summaries I wrote, to figure out how to revise the remaining three chapters.

Other than that, I'm also finishing up my '08 Nano, which is about werewolves. It's been a while since I worked on that one, but it doesn't seem as difficult to write as I thought it would. So that's at least a good thing, since I wrote the first two acts and never got to act three when I stopped working on it. (I'm still not sure why I did that.)

The writing's going good and I'm excited to be working on something again rather than sitting in the funk I had been in when I couldn't figure out what to work on. I knew I wanted to work on something, I just had no idea what. And I went through idea after idea, trying to work on something, but nothing really clicked. I'm past all that, and I'm feeling much better.

Lack of Internet Equals Lack of Posts

2010-02-19T18:49:00.004-06:00

As the title says, I am without internet. Unless, of course, I get creative and go place like coffee shops (which I haven't yet), the library (which the internet sometimes works for me), or out at my church (where I am now). Though of course, getting creative can be a bit of a challenge with a ten-month-old.

Anyway.

I've been trying to figure out a story to work on and revise and submit and all that. And I've finally settled on the young adult vampire story I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2006. I've worked on this story on and off for the last three years. It's good because I have more notes on revising the thing than I know what to do with. But at the same time, there's things that in one revision pass I deleted, then in another revision pass, I decided I wanted them put back in. So it's a bit of a challenge, and yet this time around it's been easier to revise than any of the other times I've attempted to do so.

I also came to the realization, which could account for this revision pass being easier than the others (both for this story and for others I've attempted to revise), that I way overthink things. Of course, back when I was in tae kwon do, my instructors kept trying to drill that into my head. So we'll see how well I listen this time.

Teen Writing, Part 1

2010-01-04T06:41:00.003-06:00

Mostly cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

These are two posts by SF writer John Scalzi about writing as a teen/teen writing. The first is his initial post and the second is a follow up. I encourage anyone who is a teen writer now or was a teen writer to read his posts. I don't know from other peoples' experience, but, at least from my own, the blog posts are spot on.

I agree with pretty much everything he said. At some point when I have more time and/or remember, I might write a full blog post on why I agree with what he said and my own experience just because I think it'd be too long to write here.

But, yeah, I can say that when I was a teen and even some of the stuff I wrote for my first couple of creative writing classes in college I thought was the greatest stuff in the world. One was a short story called "Internet Alien" and the other was a short story that was rewritten/expanded into a novel chapter called "Angel Love, Demon Love". At the time I thought these two stories were the pinnacle of my writing. Then I got older/smarter.

At times I think about going back and fixing up "Internet Alien", but there's something I still like about it, flaws and all. But I would like to go back to Angel Love, Demon Love and turn that into at a novel.

What Baby Wants

2009-12-27T11:21:00.002-06:00

So I think I've encountered the first of many times where what I would pick out for my son is not what he would pick out for himself. Shocking, I know. But it is.

For Christmas, my sister took me on a shopping spree to get whatever baby stuff I wanted. And one of the things on my list was this toy that the kid could push it as they practiced walking behind it, or you could put the seat down and the kid could ride it. Only I wanted the one that had a big lion head on the front where you could push the lion's nose and it would talk to you. But there was another on at the store for half the cost, didn't talk, didn't have a cute lion's face staring at you, and had a whole bunch of things the kid could spin to see different colors or make noise.

When it comes to two items that I'm kind of torn between which one I want to get, I'll show them to my son and have him pick them out. Yeah, I realize he's not even a year old, he's only eight-and-a-half months right now, but I've been letting him choose things for quite a while now.

And really, I wanted the lion walker/rider, but my sister was like, well, this other one's half the cost, so you could buy more stuff. So we set the two boxes on the floor at the store and let the little guy choose which one he wanted.

Of course, he went for the cheaper one.

So we got that one, got some other stuff for him (the usual diapers, wipes, sippy cups, flatware, plates, and toys), and we were good to go.

It was only after I got home, had my husband put together his new walker/rider, go to sleep, only to be woken up by a hungry baby that I started thinking, you know, maybe I should have gotten the lion instead. That was the one thing I wanted to get, but didn't.

Then, this morning, the little guy was playing with his new toys and seemed to really like the walker/rider he picked out. So even though I liked the lion one better, he seems pretty happy with the one he picked out.

I Heart Apocalyptica

2009-11-24T18:41:00.007-06:00

Normally, I'm pretty self-centered on this blog, talking about my writing and occasionally about other things like life in Japan or my son. But I found a new band today, so I'll make an exception.

Instead of writing my NaNo novel, I started making a playlist on Youtube for another project I want to work on (Standard Issue). Feeling guilty about that, I decided to add to my playlist for No Leaf Clover. Most of the songs for No Leaf Clover are from Metallica and Linkin Park. Linking Park because it's one of my favorite bands, and Metallica because one of the love interests is based off a guy I knew and Metallica was his favorite band. Plus, the title comes from a Metallica song.

So, I came across this band. And they are amazing. Okay, partly it's because I like Metallica, but mostly it's because the violin is my favorite instrument in the entire world. (Yeah, yeah. I know they're not actually playing violins, but still.)

I've loved violin music ever since I was a little girl when a violinist came to my church to play. I even attempted to play the violin when I was in fifth grade, but gave up shortly after seventh grade because I just didn't have the heart for it. So the violin is kind of a symbol of "What if" for me, of a life different than the one I have now, but it's also very nostalgic. Also when I was a girl, I imagined forming a quartet with my friends. Another friend and I both played the violin, and we had a friend who played the viola and one who played the cello.

There are some Evanescence songs that I enjoy because they have stringed instruments in them. The most notable song is Whisper. I also like that song (Whisper) because it reminds me of Rose (from my Hunter series) who's one of the very first characters I created in the Realm of Shadows.

So here's my favorite Metallica song (Nothing Else Matters) done by Apocalyptica, all with stringed instruments. And yeah, I realize it shows them playing cellos in the video, but still. One, it's such a beautiful song anyway. And two, I like pretty much anything with stringed instruments, but especially violins.

Here's another one, called One.

And yeah, I'll admit. I like just about any song that has violins in it.

The New Adult Genre

2009-11-20T21:41:00.004-06:00

St. Martin's Press is holding a contest for "New Adult" novels. And once again, I entered. Just like the other contests I entered, I don't expect to win, but it doesn't hurt to try.

As to what "New Adult" is, well, I'm quite excited to talk about that. It's a genre that's supposed to bridge the gap between young adult and adult novels.

In young adult novels, the main characters are usually between the ages of 14 and 18, they are most often are in high school or of high school age, and it's usually a coming of age story where the main character(s) deals with his or her place in the world.

And adult novels are typically about adults, or deal with adult themes. But the lines get a bit murky when you have adult books about teens or even younger protagonists just because of subject matter. I'd be a lot clearer on this, but I can't think of any examples at the moment.

There there are also "crossover" novels, where the novel was written for the young adult (ages 12+ or 14+, if it's "edgy") or middle grade (around ages 9 to 12) audience, but appeals to adults as well. Two popular crossover series are Harry Potter (which I'm pretty sure started as MG and later became YA) and the Twilight Saga (which is considered YA).

And then there are the novels for those characters who aren't in high school anymore, are looking to college, or maybe just graduated from college and are looking to start a career or whatever. These twenty-something characters are often too old for the young adult genre, but too young for the adult section. Or so I've read on various blogs and message boards.

But then there is some truth to this, since this is roughly the age range that I'm in. When I go to the bookstore or even to my local library, the books seem to be about characters in their thirties or in their teens. (Note that I don't read fiction younger than YA. I never really have, even when I was in that age range. But then, when I was younger, I didn't read all that much since I couldn't find stories about kids my age.) One notable exception being the Heather Wells mystery series by Meg Cabot.

I also remember not finding any college age books during my first summer after college. (Because, let's face it. I had just "escaped" high school, why would I want to read about a character who's still there? Though, my tastes and opinions have changed since then.) And, really, that was what prompted me to start writing semi-seriously in the first place. And I'm pretty sure that's what led me to take my first creative writing class in college, which led to my eventual minor in creative writing.

A few years back, Dorchester Publishing tried to do SHOMI, a line of "action romances" for the 18 - 25-year-old (or the possible "new adult" audience. I really enjoyed the two books I read from the line, and have a third sitting on my shelf patiently waiting for me to read it. Unfortunately, the line folded.

So I'm really interested to see if St. Martin's new adult genre catches on with readers and other publishers. I hope it does, not only because that's primarily what I write and would like to get published, but also because I think there's a lot of potential for characters and stories to be told that aren't seen in either the YA or adult genre (or at least not that I've seen).

Comments That Make You Go, WTF?!?

2009-11-15T14:48:00.003-06:00

Here's another comment cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

From day 15

My main character is sort of an athlete because she's in martial arts, but that's not really the same thing.

Though I think I finally reached a point in her story where all the characters are acting randomly and without my control.

It probably doesn't help that I tried to read through my notes for some ideas.

I came across this one: What do faeries want with an ancient Korean sword anyway?

Yeah, so I have no idea where that came from. And as far as I know, there aren't any faeries in this story. They exist in the world as a whole, but I didn't think any of them made any appearances in this story.

Also, I have my main character fighting these magical constructs and I came across this other note that they're reanimated demon skeletons.

Yeah.

So I have no idea where it's all going, I just hope that it still makes sense to me once November is over.

More on this later. Hopefully.

More Random Comments

2009-11-12T14:39:00.002-06:00

I have a few more random comments from NaNo that are cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

From Day 11

I didn't get any writing done today, but I didn't think I would. What with trying to get a flu shot for my baby only to have them tell me that there weren't any left. And with going up to the Mall of America with my friend so she could get an autograph from some of the actors from New Moon and go to the Q & A session. It was a long and fun day, but didn't help me get any writing done. Oh, well. Hopefully, I'll have better luck tomorrow.

I was at least hoping to get some more planning done, so I had an idea where the next couple chapters are going, but I didn't even get that far. Though I realized that one of the other students in my main character's tae kwon do class has the same name as the main character of last year's NaNo. So I get to decide if they're both the same character, two guys who just happen to have the same name, or change one of their names. I might go with the first one, because it seems like more fun at the moment. But, we'll see.

From Day 12

Things have been going too easy for my main character. I've been focusing too much on the relationship aspect of her life, and now I need to get to more fighting. The next chapter's from my villain's point of view, which should mean more fighting and less romance.

My Little Niche on NaNo

2009-11-09T12:45:00.002-06:00

I probably should have posted this before, but I didn't really think about it.

For those curious, here is a link to my little spot on NaNoWriMo.

There, you can read Chapter 1 from No Leaf Clover.

Enjoy.

Writing Commentary

2009-11-06T14:16:00.003-06:00

These are cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

I've decided to add these here for the curious, the bored, and most for my own amusement. But here's some of my commentary that I've written on the Den of Shadows message board. They are comments about my writing and life during NaNo.

From Day 3

It's been nearly ten years since I was in high school and I'm having a difficult time remembering exactly what it was like. It didn't seem so hard three years ago when I was first working on this story.

Also, my main character who I think of as non-violent (even though she's in martial arts) decided to pick a fight with her best friend. So we'll see what sort of repercussions that has for her.

I forgot to mention earlier, but yesterday my husband and I decided to set up a mini competition for us: to see who gets published first (which will also include finishing our novels, revising them, and sending out queries and all that fun stuff).

From Day 4

Well, what I plan to write today was originally going to be part of the chapter I wrote yesterday. Only, one of these magical constructs that the villain summoned is supposed to narrate the chapter. I'm not sure how a magical construct is supposed to think or feel or even narrate what's going on around it, which is probably why I haven't started the chapter yet. But I guess the only way to find out is to actually write it. And if it turns out that you really can't have a magical construct narrating, then I'll just have to change the chapter's point of view during revisions.

On to figuring out how constructs think.

And from Day 6

My plot's going remarkably well. Of course I haven't gotten to any of the stuff that wasn't really planned out prior to NaNo, so we'll have to wait and see what happens with the vague scene impressions I have for later on.

When I went to bed last night, I was just over 15,000 words in, and roughly one forth of the way into my plot (I'm aiming for 60,000). But, I have a few missing scenes (mostly fight scenes that I haven't felt like writing yet) and a missing chapter. Once I finish those, it'll put me well past the 15,000 word mark, but I don't mind. I'm sure I have a lot of empty filler words that will be removed during revision.

P.S. I never actually wrote the chapter from the magical construct's point of view. I think it would be a fun exercise in writing, but I think the prose and thought process of a magical construct would be a lot worse than that of a zombie. At least zombies can think/say, "Braaaiiinnnssss!!"

National Novel Writing Month

2009-11-06T13:47:00.003-06:00

I signed up for my fourth NaNo.

I had plans to finish Kitsu's story by November 1, but those kind of fell through when I went a couple weeks without working on her story. Instead, I read. Then I started revising my vampire novel. And since I got through the first half of it in just over a week, I figured it would take just as long to revise the second half of it. Not so. So now I have two partially edited novels awaiting my return.

Originally, my idea for NaNo this year was going to be about the Mage's daughter from my and my husband's Standard Issue universe. I was really excited to work on it too. There was the mage's daughter who is just about as powerful as the mage himself is, and the only thing that stopped her from using magic to screw with people (just like dear old dad) was whether or not she felt like it. I mean, she was going to high school after all so she didn't have as much free time on her hands, what with homework and extracurricular activities and all.

And in response to some of the teen paranormal romances out there that included a vampire werewolf love triangle, my mage was going to get involved in one. Only she would end up with the werewolf instead.

Then on one of the message boards I frequent, people started talking about zombies and the zombie apocalypse. And I thought, Hey, wouldn't that be fun?

So here's the one sentence summary of the novel I'm not writing this month.

Moonlight, A Standard Issue Teen novel
The all powerful Mage's daughter gets tangled up in a vampire werewolf love triangle until she summons her dead boyfriend from his grave and has to stop the impending zombie apocalypse all while going to high school.

What am I working on instead?

No Leaf Clover
17-year-old Pai must defend the Ancient Korean shortsword, Byung, from a Korean mummy, her new swordfighting instructor, and her crush--all to prove she's the sword's true heir.

It's a young adult novel I started in 2006 during my last semester in college, and I've been wanting to work on it ever since. I didn't work on it in previous years for NaNo because silly me thought it wasn't suitable for NaNo. Apparently, the story is proving me wrong. At the end of day 5, I had just over 15,000 words. that even surpasses my 2000 words a day goal.

Another Contest

2009-10-13T17:39:00.002-05:00

If you haven't done so yet, you should head over here and vote for your favorite entry in the Scarlet Boa Contest. Don't have time to read all the entries? You can always just vote for mine, number 132.

I entered The 3rd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge over on Nathan Branford's blog. My entry, the first paragraph of Pai's story, No Leaf Clover, is number 1318, on page 7 of the comments.

I Did It

2009-09-25T15:39:00.004-05:00

Well, I finally did it. I entered the first scene of Butterfly Mask in the Scarlet Boa Contest.

I have no idea if Butterfly Mask would be considered paranormal or not. I'm pretty sure fantasy and sci fi/futuristic romances fall under the broad grouping of paranormal romance. Either way, it can't hurt to try.

My scene, along with all the others that were entered, will be posted on October 1, then people can read them and vote for their favorite. And the winner will be announced November 1.

So Many Stories, So Little Time

2009-09-13T23:44:00.003-05:00

Semi-cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

There are so many stories I want to work on, I don't even know where to begin. There's the story that I'm trying to revise right now, and I'm slowly making progress on that. But then there are all the other stories that I could be working on. I keep telling myself that I should just finish Butterfly Mask, then I can work on any story I want.

But I keep getting distracted by thinking about which story I could work on next. Do I want to write the next book in my vampire trilogy, even though the first one needs so much work, it's not even funny? Should I turn the screenplay for Awaken back into a novel just because it was the first story I ever came up with in this world? Or should I just revise it as a screenplay and try to market it that way? Do I want to work on another adult novel after this, or do I want to work on my young adult novel, No Leaf Clover? Or do I really want to go back to my angel and demon story and try to submit that for an anthology? Do I want to pause in my revisions and work on a short story just so I can feel like I've accomplished something?

Plus, NaNo's just around the corner. So I know I want to work on something for NaNo, the only question is what. Should I go back to my vampire trilogy? Since book 1 was the only time I completed NaNo, and I'd really like to do that again. Or should I work on Awaken, since it is the first book in this world and I'd really like to get that one published.

Of course, I should just think of this logically.

1. The angel and demon story would need to be completed by November 1.
2. NaNo starts November 1.
3. I've been working on this version of Butterfly Mask (then called Kitsune) since August 2007. I think it's well past time to finish it and send it out the door.

If (when) I finish Butterfly Mask before November 1, I think it will depend on which I want to write about more: vampires or hunters. Or if I've had time to revise book 1 of the vampire trilogy before then (which seems unlikely). My hunter will probably win out just because I've been thinking about his character more than my vampire, and because I'd prefer to get his book published first.

Can You Read My Manuscript?

2009-09-11T17:10:00.003-05:00

I generally read a lot of agent blogs, mainly because I find them to be interesting, entertaining, and educational. Eventually, I'd like to link to some of the blogs I read (not just the agent ones), but that would require a slightly different layout of this blog, since I think the sidebar is overcrowded as it is.

Anyway.

Today, I came across this article, "I Will Not Read Your F*ing Screenplay", about taking your screenplay (though it could apply to any other manuscript for that matter) to an industry professional (other writer, publisher, agent, etc.) and having them read your manuscript and commenting on it or just using them as an "in" to the business.

I guess for me, I never really thought about asking a professional to consider any of my manuscripts, for a number of reasons. 1. I'm a shy person. So first I'd have to actually work up the courage to talk to someone. 2. My first drafts are far from perfect. I get embarrassed just having my husband read my first draft. How embarrassed would I be if a professional were to look at something that is, for all intents and purposes, incomplete? 3. I think 1. and 2. covers it quite well. Plus, I think it's just rude.

One of my friend's uncles lives in New York and is involved with the plays there. I don't know exactly what he does, but he hates it when some random person who might have some connection to him (like one of mine and my friend's teachers from high school who never even met the guy) ask him (or try to get someone else, like my friend, to ask him) if he'll look at something they wrote.

Sure, this may sound like a good idea. I mean, a connection into the business is still a connection, right? There's that saying that goes, "It's not what you know, but who you know," that I think some people try taking just a little too literal. Plus, I think some people are so focused on getting "in" themselves, that they don't think about what it's like for the person who's already "in". Someone on the outside might think, "Oh, it's just one manuscript. How much time could it really take?" What that person doesn't think about are all the other people thinking the same exact thing and how that one person still has a job to do. And no, it's not reading some random person's manuscript.

Aside from the three points I mentioned above, I guess I'd like to add, that if I ever made it "in", I wouldn't want random people coming up to me, asking me to read something they wrote, just because they think I'll somehow magically be able to get them "in". If I have to work hard to get "in", then I think other people should have to work just as hard.

I guess, maybe I'm just weird since I actually rejected an opportunity similar to this. While still in college, I finished the rough draft of Butterfly Kiss (kind of the precursor to Butterfly Mask). I was so proud that I actually finished something that after typing it all up, I printed it off, and showed it to one of my creative writing teachers. I absolutely loved this teacher and he taught my favorite class (Screenwriting). He asked if I wanted him to read it for me. And I was so embarrassed that it was just a sloppy first draft that I actually told him no. But he could have read it, he could have commented on it, and I might have had an "in" into the writing industry, but I said no.

I guess the difference is that I didn't go to him with the intention of having him read my manuscript and possibly take advantage of his contacts. I just wanted to show him that I completed something outside of my creative writing classes. I wanted to share that joy of actually completing something with him because I felt that he had a pretty big impact on me as a writer, and I guess it was kind of like saying thank you. Because of him, I was able to complete something.

But now that he's no longer one of my teachers, and even though he may have "industry connections" (he did publish a couple young adult books), I wouldn't go up to him with the same manuscript, or any other manuscript, and say, "Hey, can you read this for me?"

Writing ... Is Slow

2009-09-09T13:32:00.001-05:00

I'm still working on revising chapter 4. Just as I think I'm done, I think of something different/new/better to do, causing me to rewrite the whole chapter. I'm on my fourth try, and between that (all the tries) and taking care of the baby and now housesitting for my in-laws (making it so I also have to watch their dogs and cook all my meals), it's taken over to months. Kind of pathetic, actually. But at least I see the end (finally finishing chapter 4) in sight. Though when I went to type up the new scene 1 of chapter 4 yesterday, I realized that I still have some changes to make.

On the plus side, this whole writing and rewriting of chapter 4 has forced me to learn/discover/figure out more of the nit-picky details of my world. The downside is that those details don't always show up at the best time, causing me to rewrite the chapter yet again to include them in their proper spot.

Oh well, I just have to keep telling myself that the end product will be worth it. And that even if ultimately those details don't make it into the final draft, I still know them so it makes the world that much more alive for me and hopefully, eventually, that much more alive for the reader.

I Love My Baby

2009-09-08T19:46:00.003-05:00

Sure, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I love my baby, but it's not as simple as you might think.

When I first saw my baby (and I'm not talking about the alien-in-the-ultrasound baby), I had no idea what to think of him. Sure, I had spent the months prior to his birth wondering what it would be like to be a mom, what it would be like to finally hold him and have him in my arms. And I didn't believe the teachers at the baby care classes I went to about the whole bonding thing and that the first moments after birth were important to both mom and baby. I thought, what would be so hard about liking him?

Well, was I in for a shock.

The first time I held my baby was after three and a half hours of labor and delivery, and nearly twenty-four hours practically strapped to a bed (sure, I wasn't strapped down, but they wouldn't let me get up). So I looked at my baby and after thinking, you know, he really does look like the little alien from his ultrasound photos, he was just that to me: an alien.

And truthfully, I wanted nothing to do with him.

I had no idea what to do. Luckily, the nurses knew what I had to do, and soon it was time to feed him. Then everybody left, and it was just the three of us (me, baby, and daddy). The last thing I thought before falling asleep was the first thing I thought when I woke up: I have a baby (with a sense of dread) and I am way too young for this.

Now, almost five months later, I can look at my baby, look at the way he's sleeping so peacefully, and still think I have a baby. But instead of that same sense of dread as I first had, I have more of this calming, relaxing, sense of peace.

Sure, there are time when I still think I am way too young for this (being a mom), but I'm starting to get used to it. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it, but there's no going back. There's no changing what has happened. It's simultaneously the scariest and more awe inspiring thing that has ever happened to me. I worry about the future, and what kind of boy, and eventually what kind of man he'll be and know that that will be a direct result of how I raise him (and sure my husband will be helping too, but I'm the one staying home with him day after day). But then I think of all the work I had to go through to get to this point, all the nights of hardly any sleep, all the difficulties feeding him, all the thoughts of having absolutely no idea what to do with him, and yet, I think, if I can make it through all that, what can't I make it through? Some days, that thought is barely enough to keep me going. Especially when I think that there couldn't possibly be any end to whatever's happening.

But then, the baby falls asleep. And it's like the world is so peaceful, time slows down, and it seems like this should never end.

And those are the moments that make it all worth it.

When you can look at his sleeping face and know that after all the fussing and all the crying and all the not knowing how to help him and all the feeling helpless and not knowing what to do that you know that there will eventually be a moment where it's all over, where he's sleeping, and there's just this sense of rightness with the world.

It's those moments that allow me to realize that everything I do for him, all the stress I put myself through, is just because I love him.

It's those moments that I look forward to. When I look at my baby, think I made that, and smile. Where sometimes I want nothing more than to just let his sleep peacefully on my lap because there's nothing else I have to do with him.

What a Cute Kitty

2009-08-17T13:26:00.003-05:00

Okay, I don't normally post stuff like this on my blog, but it was just too cute. Plus, it reminds me of my kitty.

The kitty in the video is either smarter than my kitty, dumber, or just plain more determined.

When we lived in Japan, our kitty was obsessed with the printer. Every time I pulled it out to print something for one of my classes or to print my novel, the kitty knew what we were doing and he was right there. Since the printer was kind of old and not working as well as it used to, we could only load in one page at a time, unless we wanted a paper jam. And since my novel was about 340 or so pages long . . . yeah, that took a long time to print. But the kitty was always right there, curious as to what we were doing, trying to stick his paws in the printer to either play with it, see how it worked himself, or just figure out where the high pitched screeching sound was coming from.

Those were the good old days when our kitty was still entertained by things other than us, and when everything was a kitty toy. Now, he mostly sets up kitty traps and catches either our puppy, my in-laws' puppy, or our hands or feet in his carefully laid kitty traps. Of course, our puppy will try to protect us from the kitty traps. And the last time she got caught in one, she harangued the kitty for quite some time afterwards.

This and That

2009-07-31T21:27:00.001-05:00

Mostly cross-posted from the eHarlequin message board.

The challenging thing I face with my writing at the moment is figuring out how to balance my writing with caring for my 3-almost-4-month old son. I would have thought I would've had that all figured out by now, but just as I think I'm beginning to figure out his schedule, he changes it on me.

It kind of sucks because I really enjoy writing everything by hand before typing it on the computer, but since I spend so much of my time just nursing him, I really only have one free hand. On the (not-so?) plus side, I'm getting really good at typing one-handed again.

Urban Fantasy

2009-07-31T15:18:00.002-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Absolute Write Water Cooler message board.

Are you an UF fan?

Yes.

If so, for how long and what authors did you start with?

I've been reading urban fantasy since high school. Probably the first UF I read was Christopher Pike's Last Vampire series and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' novels. I got hooked on UF when I read Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong in college.

Who are your favorite authors?

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes continues to be one of my favorite authors, but I've also read Kelley Armstrong, Lillith Saintcrow, Meg Cabot's Mediator series, Laurell K. Hamilton, Patricia Briggs, Melissa Marr, and others.

Are you writing urban fantasy?

Yes.

If so, what or who inspired you?

I've been inspired by real life, dreams, movies, anime, manga, books, and role-playing games.

What stage are you at with your UF novel or short story?

I'm still trying to figure out this whole revision thing with my current WIP (Butterfly Mask). I have a YA vampire novel (Like a Frothing Rabid Dog is Adorable) that needs to be revised and kicked out the door. A screenplay (Awaken) that I'd like to turn into a novel. The first draft of a MG (or young YA) novel (My Life as a Magical Girl). The first couple chapters of a YA UF novel (No Leaf Clover). A completed angel and demon short story that may or may not become chapter 1 of something longer (Angel Love, Demon Love). I'm about 3/4 of the way through a YA werewolf romance (Wolf Eyes). And a completed short story about a psychic.

Also known as, I need to get off my butt, finish all these stories I have lying around and kick them out the door so I can get working on all the new ideas that keep popping up without feeling guilty over not finishing my other stories.

I should also look also look into a market for my short psychic story to see about getting a publishing credit for when I finally finish Butterfly Mask and start submitting it to agents.

What's been the most difficult challenge for you?

How to make my vampires, shapeshifters, etc. different from everybody else's. How to add more "cool tech" and general sci fi to my far futuristic world.

Does your story include other genres like sci fi, romance or mystery?

Almost all of my stories have a guy and a girl who eventually get a happy ever after. I think of my YA vampire story as a bit of a murder mystery. And my current WIP takes place in the far future, so I'm trying to mix sci fi with UF.

What's your definition of an urban fantasy?

Vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, witches, faeries, and other supernatural creatures existing in "the world as we know it". "The world as we know it" can be Earth's past, Earth's present, an alternate past, an alternate present, or the projected future from one of these times.

It's Been a Long Weekend . . . And an Even Longer Week

2009-07-28T14:31:00.003-05:00

So I was going to post this last Monday (like over a week ago), and am now just getting around to finishing the post. As as aside, I find that I have no problem starting things, like blog posts or a load of laundry, I just have a difficult time finishing things. Especially when the baby's demanding my attention, then I tend to forget about everything else. So here goes the post from last week, with some changes to account for the delay in posting.

A week ago from last Thursday, I got to meet the newest member in my husband's family. Which means my little guy is no longer the youngest grandchild on his dad's family. I knew he wouldn't be for long, but still. There's something about him being only three months old and already having a younger cousin that makes him seem old. I mean he's only three months, and he's still pretty young, but still he seems older somehow.

At least he's still the youngest grandchild on his mom's family.

Saturday started fun. One of my friend's from college who just got married in October had her first baby on July 14. So I finally got to meet him. It would've been more fun to visit him in the hospital, but it was easier to go up on the weekend, given my husband's work schedule.

While visiting her, I realized that there's a lot of difference in my perspective as a mom in just three months. My baby was born at 5 pounds, 13 ounces. And he seemed tiny when he was born. Now he's around 12 pounds. But these last three months, he's just always weighed what he weighs, so even though I know he's getting bigger, he doesn't seem like it. As I mentioned before, he seems to be exactly the same as he was the day before and the day before that. Even though the numbers tell me he's getting bigger and I'm lifting more than I was, you don't really realize how much bigger he is until you lift a baby that about half his weight.

My friend's baby weighs about 6 pounds, 11 ounces (at least when I was holding him). Just looking at him, he seemed pretty small. But that's to be expected. He wasn't even a week old. But when I went to hold him, it seemed like there was nothing to him. He just seemed so tiny. The weirdest thing about it was that he was born bigger than my baby, and I just couldn't imagine my baby being smaller than him. I mean, I knew that's how it was because my baby was born at 5 pounds, 13 ounces. But there's something about holding a baby smaller than him and considering how big my baby is now, it just seems like it was impossible that there was a time where he was smaller.

At least I'm out of the needing to feed my baby every three hours and needing to wake him up even though he's sleeping so peacefully and I'm so tired just because he needs to eat and gain weight. And I don't envy any new parent for that experience. But somehow, now that I'm past that phase, it seems like it didn't even happen. Probably by the time I have another kid, I'll have completely forgotten all about what that felt like.

After visiting my friend, her husband and her baby, we went to a mini going away party for another friend of ours who's going to Japan. Though now he should be there. But it was pretty fun getting to talk to him again, since I hadn't seen him since Christmas time.

It was sometime during that going away party that the "fun" of the weekend started. Back in February, I ended up getting gallstones and they chose that weekend to "attack" me. So we went to the emergency room that night because I couldn't stand the pain any longer. Okay, it didn't hurt as bad as when I was delivering my baby (because I did that sans painkiller), but it still hurt. And worse, I had no idea why it was hurting. After spending the night at the emergency room, they wheeled me upstairs where the surgeon pretty much said, "You can have surgery now, or you can have surgery later." And since I was already there, I went with the surgery now option.

But apparently getting my gall bladder removed wasn't enough, since there was a bit of scare last week about needing to go in for another procedure. So I got an MRI. And I don't know what it is, but the writer in me was like, "I gotta use this in a book somehow. I don't know what I'll do with it, but it would work really well in a sci fi." The MRI came back clear. It's been over a week post-surgery and everything's all better (well, except for the incisions, which are still healing). What's best is that the pain's gone and it'll never be back. At least not because of gall stones.

The only annoying thing is that I was given a weight limit of 15 pounds for two weeks and all of last week, I couldn't even pick the little guy up. I was pretty glad to have my father-in-law around to help me while my husband was at work. But I am definitely much happier now that I can pick the little guy up again. And when you go for a week not being able to pick up your baby, so you're just limited to holding him, you actually realize how much weight he really does gain once you are able to pick him up again.

But still, when you're picking him up on a daily basis, he weighs the same as he did the day before and the day before that.

YA Book Meme

2009-07-09T20:00:00.003-05:00

I got this meme from Melissa Marr's blog.
Instructions:

Put an “X” next to the books you’ve read
Put a “+” next to the books you LOVE
Put a “#” next to the books you plan on reading

1. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams X
2. Kit’s Wilderness / David Almond
3. Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian / Sherman Alexie
4. Speak / Laurie Halse Anderson
5. Feed / M.T. Anderson
6. Flowers in the Attic / V.C. Andrews
7. 13 Reasons Why / Jay Asher
8. Am I Blue? / Marion Dane Bauer (editor)
9. Audrey Wait! / Robin Benway
10. Weetzie Bat / Francesca Lia Block
11. Tangerine / Edward Bloor
12. Forever / Judy Blume X
13. What I Saw and How I Lied / Judy Blundell
14. Tyrell / Coe Booth
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants / Ann Brashares
16. A Great and Terrible Beauty / Libba Bray #
17. The Princess Diaries / Meg Cabot #
18. The Stranger / Albert Camus
19. Ender’s Game / Orson Scott Card X
20. Postcards from No Man’s Land / Aidan Chambers
21. Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky
22. And Then There Were None / Agatha Christie
23. Gingerbread / Rachel Cohn
24. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist / Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
25. Artemis Fowl (series) / Eoin Colfer #
26. The Hunger Games / Suzanne Collins #
27. The Midwife’s Apprentice / Karen Cushman X +
28. The Truth About Forever / Sarah Dessen
29. Little Brother / Cory Doctorow
30. A Northern Light / Jennifer Donnelly
31. Tears of a Tiger / Sharon Draper
32. The House of the Scorpion / Nancy Farmer #
33. Breathing Underwater / Alex Flinn
34. Stardust / Neil Gaiman
35. Annie on My Mind / Nancy Garden
36. What Happened to Cass McBride / Gail Giles
37. Fat Kid Rules the World / K.L. Going
38. Lord of the Flies / William Golding
39. Looking for Alaska / John Green #
40. Bronx Masquerade / Nikki Grimes X
41. Out of the Dust / Karen Hesse
42. Hoot / Carl Hiaasen
43. The Outsiders / S.E. Hinton #
44. Crank / Ellen Hopkins
45. The First Part Last / Angela Johnson
46. Blood and Chocolate / Annette Curtis Klause X +
47. Arrow’s Flight / Mercedes Lackey
48. Hattie Big Sky / Kirby Larson
49. To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee X
50. Boy Meets Boy / David Levithan
51. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks / E. Lockhart
52. The Giver / Lois Lowry
53. Number the Stars / Lois Lowry
54. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie / David Lubar
55. Inexcusable / Chris Lynch
56. The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things / Carolyn Mackler
57. Dragonsong / Anne McCaffrey #
58. White Darkness / Geraldine McCaughrean
59. Sold / Patricia McCormick
60. Jellicoe Road / Melina Marchetta
61. Wicked Lovely / Melissa Marr X +
62. Twilight / Stephenie Meyer X
63. Dairy Queen / Catherine Murdock
64. Fallen Angels / Walter Dean Myers
65. Monster / Walter Dean Myers
66. Step From Heaven / An Na
67. Mama Day / Gloria Naylor
68. The Keys to the Kingdom (series) / Garth Nix #
69. Sabriel / Garth Nix X +
70. Airborn / Kenneth Oppel
71. Eragon / Christopher Paolini
72. Hatchet / Gary Paulsen X
73. Life As We Knew It / Susan Beth Pfeffer
74. The Golden Compass / Phillip Pullman
75. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging / Louise Rennison
76. The Lightning Thief / Rick Riordan
77. Always Running: La Vida Loca / Luis Rodriguez
78. How I Live Now / Meg Rosoff
79. Harry Potter (series) / J.K. Rowling
80. Holes / Louis Sachar
81. Catcher in the Rye / J. D. Salinger #
82. Push / Sapphire
83. Persepolis / Marjane Satrapi
84. Unwind / Neil Shusterman
85. Coldest Winter Ever / Sister Souljah
86. Stargirl / Jerry Spinelli
87. Chanda’s Secrets / Allan Stratton
88. Tale of One Bad Rat / Brian Talbot
89. Rats Saw God / Rob Thomas
90. Lord of the Rings / J.R.R. Tolkien
91. Stuck in Neutral / Terry Trueman
92. Gossip Girl / Cecily Von Ziegesar #
93. Uglies / Scott Westerfeld #
94. Every Time a Rainbow Dies / Rita Williams-Garcia
95. Pedro and Me / Judd Winick
96. Hard Love / Ellen Wittlinger
97. American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang
98. Elsewhere / Gabrielle Zevin
99. I am the Messenger / Markus Zusak
100. The Book Thief / Markus Zusak #

Six books I think should be added:

1. In the Forests of the Night / Amelia Atwater-Rhodes X +
2. The Mediator (series) / Meg Cabot X +
3. Wake / Lisa McMann X
4. Thirsty / M.T. Anderson X
5. The Last Vampire (series) / Christopher Pike X
6. Shattered Mirror / Amelia Atwater-Rhodes X +

4th of July

2009-07-04T23:34:00.003-05:00

This was the first year I was able to watch fireworks in my hometown in quite a while.

2008 - Yamaguchi, Japan. If you remember, I was in Japan where my husband and I had to buy our own fireworks for a mini 4th of July celebration.

2007 - Gumi, South Korea. I honestly don't remember what we did. Aside from we were in Korea and nearing the end of our stay there.

2006 - Mankato, MN. This was the year we graduated from college and went to visit our friends who weren't into watching fireworks. Even though I thought the Mankato ones were better.

2005 - Mankato, MN. I think we celebrated the 4th at our appartment. Or at least we tried to. Maybe. Honestly, I don't remember.

The last time I know for sure that we watched fireworks here was in 2000, the summer after we graduated from high school and our first summer together. We tried to watch them from a small boat on the river. Unfortunately we had too many people on the boat for its size and not enough life jackets.

But this year we were finally able to watch them at home again. And either I don't remember them being so good or they increased their fireworks budget, but I was really impressed with them this year. Then again, maybe it had something to do with being glad to be home, and glad to watch the fireworks with my husband, my son, and my puppy. Especially since I'm pretty sure Baby Nate enjoyed watching them just as much as we did. And my puppy didn't get scared until towards the end of the grand finale.

All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Also, my husband and I wore our yukata. And one person that we passed while crossing the street on our way to the Levee Park actually recognized them for what they were. And said, "What beautiful yukatas."

A Bithday Present to Myself

2009-06-25T10:11:00.003-05:00

I'm finally revising Butterfly Mask with the "if it doesn't fit with the story, chop it--don't worry if you like it, just get rid of it" attitude and so far it seems to be helping.

A few key factors are helping me with it, though.

1. I want to have it finished by my birthday, which is only a few days away. And for some reason, I tend to get pretty motivated the closer I get to a deadline. And part of me just really wants to get this done since I've been working on it off and on since 2003.

2. I was complaining about how I didn't know "what the book's about" to my husband. As usual, he was able to provide some much needed insight. And even though I'm just working with "what's on the page" (like one of our English teachers always told us ot do), it feels like the story's going in a completely new direction. What's best is that I don't have to add tons of new writing to get it there. (Weird how that works, huh?)

Apparently I've Been Busy

2009-06-25T09:43:00.004-05:00

Well, I know I've been busy. I mean, I have a little baby who was just a few weeks old when I last posted and is now two and a half months old. But still. I guess you don't realize how quickly time's going by when you think you posted "not too long ago" and find out that it's been over two months since you last posted.

But don't worry because all this time, my little boy hasn't changed. Sure, he's cooing now and playing "Monkey hear, monkey say" with simple things like "ahh" and "goo". And he's grown four inches and gained five pounds. But still, he hasn't changed. I look at him every day, and today he looks the same as he did yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. Even though I know he's gotten bigger. Just like I always know how old he is (now he's just about 11 weeks), so I know how much time has passed. And yet, it doesn't seem like any time has passed.

Next thing I'll know is he'll be having kids of his own, and I'll say, "But wasn't he just a baby yesterday? If he's never changed from day to day, then how did he get so grown up?"

Our New Arrival

2009-04-22T18:26:00.002-05:00

My baby boy was born at 9:38 AM on Friday, April 10, 2009. He came about two and a half weeks early, but that was because I got incredibly high blood pressure during the last two weeks of my pregnancy so the doctors decided it was better to induce. On the plus side, my labor and delivery only lasted about three and a half hours. Baby Nate weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces and was 18 inches long.

So needless to say, with balancing taking care of our newborn, round the clock feedings, doctor's appointments to got to, not having enough time to eat and sleep, and still needing to clean our bedroom to make room for all the baby's things and all the stuff my husband brought back from Japan with him, I've had no time to write. Of course I knew while I was still pregnant that I wouldn't have much time to write once the baby was born, which was why I wanted to finish Butterfly Mask before he was born, but I just didn't realize how little time I would actually have once I got done with doing all the baby things.

I still want to finish Butterfly Mask and send it out into the world to get published, but it'll have to wait until I have a little more free time. If I'm lucky that'll be when the bedroom finally gets cleaned. If I'm not so lucky, that won't be for quite some time.

Though something I can find somewhat amusing is that I wanted to go to grad school and be a student again because so I could keep a busy schedule and better manage my time. Because when I had so much stuff I needed to do, like all the classes I needed to attend and all the writing and studying I needed to do for those classes, whenever I finished my schoolwork, I was very eager to work on my book, even if it was for just five minutes before my next class started. And I think I just realized that with how busy my schedule has just become with the little guy, I might start taking advantage of those precious five minutes a lot more often than I used to. And who knows, maybe I'll have my book done in no time.

The only set back is that I can't do much typing or writing for the next couple weeks. Not that I'll really have time. But, due to the high blood pressure, I retained a lot of fluid in my fingers, especially in my right hand, so I have to wait for that to go away before I can go super gung ho with the typing. I just hope that by the time the numbness in my fingers goes away, I'll have a little more time to slowly work on my book.

Genres I Write In

2009-03-23T06:22:00.002-05:00

I've written in a couple different genres.

The first novel I wrote was probably historical romance (Running Water). (I didn't think in terms of genre when I wrote it.) The set of novels (two and a quarter books of a trilogy) were modern day science fiction (WhaleSong), with some fantasy thrown into the mix. And that trilogy's prequel (DragonRose) was probably the closest I've come to high fantasy.

I co-wrote a number of comical short stories with one of my friends that were a mix of "real-life" and semi-science fiction. The short stories I wrote for school were mostly animal stories, with one attempt at horror.

But now my writing tends to have some element of the supernatural. Mostly, I write urban fantasy. I consider my main world to be urban fantasy, but some of the stories I'd like to write vary a little. For instance, within the urban fantasy context of the world, I have a story that's historical (The Emerald Dragon), a series and a stand alone that are young adult (No Leaf Clover and Wolf Eyes), biopunk (Psychic series), humorous and/or light (Rosaline DeLiney's series), and futuristic (Butterfly Mask), in addition to straight urban fantasy (Awaken) and possibly horror (Like a Frothing Rabid Dog is Adorable).

I also have an apocalyptic story I'd like to write with angels and demons (Angel Love, Demon Love), a YA high fantasy, and others.

Copy-Paste Problems

2009-03-23T06:17:00.002-05:00

There have been a couple posts I've wanted to write this last month. They're written, just for some reason I'm having a difficult time copy-pasting things. (I think it's the computer that I'm using because I never had a problem copy-pasting with my laptop.)

As soon as I have access to a computer that will allow me to copy-paste, I'll add a couple posts about some of the worlds I've created, namely their government systems.

But for now, I'm going to post here first, and then copy-paste my post from here to the message board I'm trying to post to.

More Death

2009-03-01T23:18:00.003-06:00

My dad's family hasn't been doing too well this year. First, in October, my grandma died. Then within a week, two of my uncles died. Both of cancer.

The first uncle was my dad's brother-in-law. From what I understand, he wasn't diagnosed with cancer until Friday, February 20th. Then he had to go in for emergency surgery that Wednesday night and didn't make it.

The second uncle was my dad's brother. He hadn't been doing too well for a while. My mom called me tonight to tell me that he was in a coma and they weren't waking him up or something, then as I was on the phone with her, she got another call from my sister saying that he died.

It's one of those times where, as a writer, I can imagine emotions for different characters to feel. And depending on the character who dies, I can imagine how different characters would react. But right now, the only feeling I have is no feeling. And I think it's this no feeling that some of my characters would feel, but as a writer, you think, but characters are supposed to feel something, without realizing that not feeling anything can be a perfectly reasonable feeling.

A Difference of Opinion

2009-02-08T09:18:00.003-06:00

So I finally read through all the notes my husband wrote about Butterfly Mask. The thing I'm surprised about most is that when I tried revising Butterfly Mask before, I made this huge list (sort of, it was mostly kept in my head) of all the things I figured I would need to change about the book in order to make it readable for someone else. So I had a ton of notes and things that would need to change, and an outline of where everything would be moved around to. And I think I gave up revising it at the time because all these notes I wrote and all these expectations I had just made the whole process so overwhelming.

But after reading my husband's notes, I realized that it doesn't have to be as complicated as I thought it would be. Which is good. Especially since now this whole revision thing seems like something I can tackle and it doesn't seem so overwhelming. So hopefully things will work better this time around. Like actually getting the book finished.

And aside from adding more detail, taking out a lot of my main character's rambling narration, and being more specific about what's happening, the only thing I'm keeping from my list of things to be revised is to write a new chapter 1 with a stronger hook that has more action.

Finally Revising Butterfly Mask

2009-02-05T09:36:00.003-06:00

After months apart, I'm finally getting around to revising Kitsune/Butterfly Mask. This last fall, my husband read it and wrote almost twenty pages of notes on what he liked, what he didn't like, what didn't make sense, problems with my main character's logic, etc. So with his notes and all the notes I've written at various stages of writing the first draft, I have a lot of notes to go through. Worse, I have to try to make sense of them all.

I think with his opinion to kind of help keep mine in check (since when I'm trying to fix a problem, some of my ideas can get pretty far out there and can make my work harder than it needs to be), the revision process won't seem so overwhelming this time. Or at least I hope it won't be. And even though he's still in Japan and I'm back in Minnesota, he's still willing to stay up late to help me decipher his notes and mine and offer new suggestions when I get stuck.

Hopefully, I'll get the second and subsequent drafts finished before something else distracts me again.

The Realm of Shadows Blog

2009-01-23T11:22:00.004-06:00

Want to know more about the Realm of Shadows, the world where most of my stories take place?

I started a new blog that's all about my world.

I don't know how often it will be updated, but I hope to eventually include all the notes about my world, including types of supernatual creatures, how the world is different in the future, character bios and more.

A Quick Update

2009-01-17T15:07:00.003-06:00

It's a short post, but I thought I'd give an update of what I've been up to.

I'm still working on Wolf Eyes, which I've been working on since November. Yesterday I finally got past block that comes every time I get to the second half of Act 2 of whatever novel I'm working on. When the worst of it is that I think, "This is nothing like what I want it to be or thought it would be. How on Earth did it ever get here?" Then yesterday I had this idea for how I could tie what was turning out to be the primary plotline with the secondary plotline that was supposed to be the main plotline. And all of a sudden, I'm back to enjoying my story, my characters, their world, etc. Most importantly, I'm back to wanting to work on it. And revise it once I finally get the first draft finished.

I hope to have this draft finished by February. And after that comes typing it, reading it, revising it, and sending it to friends, then revising some more, etc., until I finally get around to writing the synopsis and query so I can finally submit something to agents.

Then I can get back to all those projects that have been enticing me while I've been at the bottom of the this-story-sucks pit.

Well, a Lot Has Happened

2008-12-04T12:22:00.002-06:00

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted anything, so I'll try to be brief, but still cover a lot of ground.

1. Well, I'm no longer in Japan. I had already been planning on taking a one-week vacation in October to go to my friend's wedding, but when I got a phone call that my grandmother passed away, I went home a week earlier. And I've been here ever since for various reasons.

2. With my grandmother's passing I finally acquired a dining room table set. This is a pretty big deal for me since I've never had one of my own. At the last apartment my husband and I had during college, our dining room was more of place to keep all our bookshelves.

3. My friend's wedding was interesting. It was sad because I wasn't able to go to it with my husband, since he is still in Japan, but my friend was happy that I could make it.

4. With staying here for two months and counting, I finally decided I really needed to get a job. I've had a couple interviews and am waiting to hear back. But I've definitely been enjoying my time not needing to work.

5. Part of why I wasn't really motivated to get a job was that November was National Novel Writing Month. This was my third year participating, and my second year not getting to the 50,000 word mark. But I don't care. I absolutely love the book I started in November, and am anxious to finish it in December.

6. In addition, my husband is coming back around December 20th. So we're both pretty excited to be together again. Though it won't be for long since he'll need to go back to Japan in early January. But he'll be coming back again sometime in March.

7. Lastly, my husband challenged me to have a book ready to submit by the end of the year. Of course logic says I should go back to Kitsu's book and wade through the massive amounts of rewrites I have for that, but my heart is telling me to work on the new story I started in November.

8. The new story is called Wolf Eyes. It's a teen werewolf romance about a girl named Nisus Asano and the boy she likes. I'll try to post more info about this story later.

9. I'm also trying to get my husband and I ready to go to grad school, starting August 2009.

All things considered, I should be staying pretty busy for the holidays.

Writer's Block, Part 2

2008-09-19T20:15:00.002-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

As to writer's block in general, I tend to get stuck for a couple reasons.

1. I took the easy way out while writing something. Meaning rather than writing what would be better for the characters and plot, I wrote what was easier or what came to me first without giving it some extra thought. Then I usually can't figure out where to go from there, so I "delete" (meaning I just copy it into a new document) what I wrote (sometimes it'll be a paragraph and sometimes it'll be an entire chapter) and start over. I get stuck this way the most during the actual writing process.

2. This is also during the writing process, where I can look at my outline and know what I need to write, I just have no idea how to go about doing it. (This is probably my problem with my new chapter 1.) This block is the hardest to fix since it pretty much forces me to become a better writer than I am now, or I have to rework my plot to make a different scene fit.

3. I have no idea where the story is going or needs to go. This can happen during either the outlining stage or while I'm writing, since I tend to write a lot of things that weren't included in my outline (especially in the middle of the book). To get past this, I usually need to do a lot of brainstorming either by writing down all the ideas I can think of myself, or by talking to my husband.

Sentence Sunday

2008-09-14T19:49:00.002-05:00

This is mostly cross-posted from Fangs, Fur, & Fey.

This week's Sentence Sunday was to pick a paragraph that reflects your feelings for a setting you loved.

This is from a non-fiction piece titled "Things I do not Think About", but I want to incorporate many of the sensory details from this piece into my YA WIP, No Leaf Clover.

The second thing I do not think about as I bow is the rectangular room that we are in. I do not think about the smell of sweat and sweating bodies that is soaked into the walls and floor, or that the smell no longer bothers me. Except on test days, like today. This room has been crammed with people for four hours, with large men and other martial artists pushing our bodies past our limit, sweating profusely, and adding to the ambient smell of sweat in the room. I do not think about the first time I entered the tae kwon do building, that the more stairs I climbed, the stronger the stench of sweat became, until I entered the room at the top where the stench was so unbearable I thought I’d never be able to return.

I like this because this includes my very first impression of tae kwon do, and I really thought I wouldn't be able to go back. But I went back, and the more I did, the less the smell bothered me. Anyway, I really like this because tae kwon do had such a huge impact on my life when I was in high school. And even though I'm not in tae kwon do now, I hope that by writing about it, I'll be able to share my good memories with other people.

Also, the location and many of the students have changed since I went to tae kwon do in high school, but by writing about it, I can always go back to the way things were.

My Valuable Husband, Part 2

2008-09-14T19:01:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted from the AW message board.

When I'm stuck, I usually can't figure out exactly why I'm stuck, so I will talk to my husband. I try to talk about my current problem, because that's the only thing I'm stuck on, right? Though usually just by talking to him, I'm able to figure out a lot more about the story, the characters, their backstories, the world, etc. just by talking to him. And yeah, sometimes the conversations are a bit one-sided, but usually just voicing ideas helps. Besides, I figure if an idea sounds really stupid when I'm trying to explain it to my husband, even if he isn't listening to me, then it'll probably sound stupid to everyone else.

Being Sick, Goals, and Research

2008-09-14T18:27:00.004-05:00

I posted this at the Den of Shadows a day or two ago.

I didn't get any writing done at all last week. Mostly it was because I became extremely sick and had to miss two and a half days of work. I only went the half day on the first day I was sick because my boss made me and I don't think he realized how sick I was. But I finally went to the doctor's yesterday, and while I'm not completely better, I'm starting to feel better.

I'd probably try to get some work done today, but I have an English test to write, and besides, I don't think my brain's really functioning at full strength right now, so I'd probably just end up with a bunch of stuff that needs to be scrapped anyway.

Plus, I just got Supernatural, Season 3 in the mail yesterday, so I'm probably not going to get much writing done until I've finished watching that.

As to my weak spot, I'd say it's not actually finishing a project before starting the next one. My plots or my characters may not be that great, but with discussing problems I'm having with my husband, I can usually figure those out. It's the knowing what needs to be revised and fixed, and then not actually fixing it that I have a problem with. I think part of it is that I don't have an external deadline to keep me in line and to keep me working on one thing at a time, so I've considered sending off a query to agents, but then I've read some horror stories that happened to other people and I don't think that's the wisest idea either. So I don't know.

Though I do want to have Kitsune ready to submit by October 31, then maybe I can work on her book 2 (assuming I get the printout of it while I'm in MN in October) or I can work on some of the characters' history that happens in the distant past of Kitsu's time, but in the near future (I think) of our time. I think that history is really important to figure out too before I start doing too much work on book 2. Plus, the history should be fairly short, so I should be able to finish that for NaNo even if I don't make the 50,000 words.

Whenever I go to the library, I say I'm going to get one or two books on this one topic that I want to research, and then I come home with two bags full of books. Okay, so most of the books I get are children's books, but that's just because I find them easier to understand, at least for certain topics. But still, when I was living with my husband's parents, whenever I got home from the library, his dad would always say, "I thought you were going to get just two books." And I always say, "I was."

A Peek at my Writing Process

2008-09-08T00:56:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

I don't think I really have candy bar scenes. Because I write out my entire story longhand first, I like to write the order that I think it should go. Usually I have two or three outlines I try to follow. One outline will be for the entire book, one will be for the chapter, and then sometimes one will be for the scene. I usually write scene outlines when either I think of a really great scene (or at least I think it's really great at the time), but it won't be happening in my story for quite some time. So I write a scene outline that I tuck into my notes to come back to when I finally get to that scene. I also write scene outlines when I can't figure out how to do the scene I'm currently working on, since writing the scene outline gives me more leeway to go off on random tangents that writing the actual scene wouldn't allow.

Even though I try to work from an outline, it's still just a starting point to the whole writing process. I think my brain's kind of chaotic, so having an outline helps me bring some order to my thoughts. Usually, my story has changed from the initial outline I wrote for it, with plenty of scenes and character emotions and reactions that I never planned out beforehand.

Though I suppose with Kitsune/Butterfly Mask, I have more of a candy bar character. I have this character whom I love working with and love the way he and my main character interact with each other, so I'm always excited when a scene with him is coming up. Plus, over the weekend, my husband helped me figure out some more of his background, so I have a bit more of a character goal/character arc for him for this book. So I'm looking forward to working on the next draft of me book just to work with him some more.

My Valuable Husband

2008-09-06T08:52:00.001-05:00

This is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

EverStar wrote:

yttar, I envy the partnership you have with your husband. It must be nice to have someone whom you can share your work with and receive feedback from.

It's kind of two-fold actually. He's really good with helping me with ideas. Which I decided to scratch the new idea I got because he figured it was too far of a stretch and it probably was which was why I stopped working on that idea, and he tried helping me fix the first couple of ideas I had. That also led to a new idea for another character's backstory and room for character growth for that character, which is always good, plus it makes one of my villains seem so much more evil, not that people will really see that right away.

But when it comes to actually reading and critiquing stories, well, he's not so good. I mean, he can point out logic and continuity errors or things that just don't make sense, but he's kind of slow at reading the story. And I don't really want to be that whole nagging wife with, "Have you read my story yet? Huh? Have you? Why aren't you reading it?"

In college we took a couple creative writing classes together and during the critique of one of my stories, there was a part that was just really bad and no one else in the class mentioned it, but he did, so he said so. Of course all the girls were outraged that my husband would say something so mean about his wife. And the two of us were like, "What? If he always tells me how great and wonderful my writing is [which it usually isn't], than how am I ever supposed to learn anything as a writer? How am I supposed to get better?" But I guess most of the girls in that class would probably dump a guy if he said anything bad about her writing.

The only downside is that he's not really considered a "fresh set of eyes". So he can catch most of the mistakes in the story, but when I finally finish editing it and before I try submitting it to an agent, I'll need to find someone else to read through it for me. I have another friend who's really good with critiques, but he's going to be starting up school again, so he'll probably be busy with his own creative writing. But with how slow I work, I probably won't have my story finished until winter break anyway.

Another Excerpt From Butterfly Mask (Kitsune)

2008-09-06T00:44:00.001-05:00

This scene's from my WIP Butterfly Mask.

* * *

I was seven years old.

Cristao stood across from me in the middle of the training room, his emerald eyes focused on my jade ones. He bowed; I followed. “You have the skill,” he said, “you just need to use it.”

“What if I don’t want to kill?” I slapped my hands over my mouth. As if that could take away what I said.

“This isn’t about killing,” he said. “This isn’t about what you want; or what I want. This is about survival.” He assumed a fighting stance. “Now hit me.”

I stared at him; I couldn’t hurt my brother.

“If you don’t attack,” he said, circling me, forcing me to move to keep him in sight, “I will.”

He punched. I backed up. His front two knuckles grazed my upper lip. He kicked. I spun to the side.

My brother punched. I dodged. He kicked. I dodged. He forced me to move so fast, I couldn’t breathe. My brother wasn’t even sweating.

Cristao reached for something in his in the folds of his martial arts uniform. He punched. I stood there, too exhausted to move. He threw three darts.

Two whizzed past my ear. The third dart pierced my chest. As I pulled it free, I sniffed its poison. “Serentis Moss.”

He smiled, proud. “It’s good to see you studied hard, Izabel.”

I glared at him. I didn’t correct him that my knowledge of the galaxy’s deadliest poison didn’t come from my studies. Or that the dosage in a single dart wasn’t enough to kill me. But it was enough to know he was serious.

“You can have the antidote,” he said. Then he smiled. “But only if you can beat me.”

My brother reached inside his sleeve. I crouched so low I almost touched the hardwood floor. With a fox’s speed, I pounced and pinned him. I wrenched the darts from his fingers, and threw them across the room.

My brother flipped us, pinned me and slammed my head into the floor.

It was act now, or not at all.

With all my power, I kicked. Cristao flew into the wall. I looked at my brother with two solid black orbs. For the only time in my life, I saw true fear in his eyes. He knew I would kill him if I wanted to.

I crouched, growled, and pounced. As I pinned my brother, my fingernails and toenails lengthened into claws that pierced his skin. His deep crimson blood welled up under my nails, but I didn’t care. He tried to throw me off; I dug in deeper.

My canines elongated into fangs, which I sank into his throat and tore at his flesh. His screams encouraged me. I didn’t stop until his throat was nothing more than shredded flesh and blood.

Oh, God. I jumped back from my brother’s still body and screamed. It was the only mourning I was allowed before his body disappeared.

The applauding started then. From the one person hiding in the shadows. He smelled of musk over a light sheen of sweat. His scent was as familiar to me as my own.

Cristao.

He stepped out of the shadows, wearing his white mask with the red scorpion whose tail was ready to strike. I should have known. Why fight your own sister when you can program a Holo to do it?

“You should be more careful whom you reveal your secret to,” he said, smiling and simultaneously looking like my caring older brother and the Scorpio he was soon to be. “You never know who’ll want to use it.”

* * *

I like this scene because it's the first time my main character reveals her supernatural abilities to anyone, including herself. And I think much of the plot of Butterfly Mask directly results from this scene.

I Need a Hero

2008-08-28T22:05:00.003-05:00

A few days ago I started working on a novella for Nocturne Bites.

So I spent a couple of days working on an outline and I was pretty happy with how it was all fitting together. Then I talked about the story and characters with my husband over lunch, and he pointed out why it didn't make a whole lot of sense. More specifically, he said if that's how this type of supernatural that's supposed to be incredibly rare is created, then there'd be a whole army of these basically half-breed guys running around. Being that I only want there to be one of these "half-breeds" running around, I figured that would be a good thing to change. Which led to a whole change in plot.

So I rewrote the plot, or at least tried to based on his suggestions. And I didn't like it. There just wasn't any emotion to it.

So I rewrote it again. And I really like it this time. My husband likes it too.

Now I just need to figure out what the hero looks like. I can almost catch glimpses of what he looks like in my head, so I'm hoping that by writing the story, it'll come to me. Or I'll have to drag my husband to the HobbyOff to search the anime and game figuringes for a suitable match, like I have for the heroine.

An Excerpt From Butterfly Mask (Kitsune)

2008-08-23T23:09:00.004-05:00

Here's an excerpt from Butterfly Mask. I'm still editing it, so this is from my most recent draft.

I like this scene because it's the first meeting between Kitsu and Natsuke after not seeing each other for 2 years, and the setting shows some of the conflict between them being together. There is some mild language.

* * *

I squeezed his hand one last time. “What the hell did you even come here for?” Because I knew it wasn’t for an intragalactic booty call.

“You.” He turned back to face me, his chocolate brown eyes embraced mine.

“What?”

“I want you to come to Elea with me.”

I stared at him.

“Aren’t you going to ask why? Or how I knew where to find you, Sombra Alara?” He quirked his sexy lips at me.

“Get out.”

“I’ve been working on something big,” he said. “Something so big, it’ll change our understanding of science. It’ll change our understanding of religion.”

There was nothing that could have that great of an impact on the galaxy.

“I’ve been working on a theory that proves humans came from a single Human Homeworld.”

Except that. “That’s heresy.”

“I know.” He looked down at me, hopeful. “Come with me.”

“I can’t.”

He looked around the trashy hotel room, with the faded pink wallpaper coming apart at the seams, the paint fractures on the wall behind the bed, the water stains on the ceiling, and the glass bowl full of condoms for all sizes, pleasures, flavors, and species.

“Why? Am I keeping you from some other affair?”

“You know it’s not like that.”

“What else would you be doing here?” He didn’t bother hiding the disgust from his eyes.

I got up, marched Natsuke to the door, and reached around him to enter the keycode. “Out.”

The door slid close between us.

Sci Fi Movie Fun

2008-08-20T07:15:00.002-05:00

I saw this on a blog and thought it looked like fun.

Here’s how this works. Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize the ones you’ve watched.

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives
9. The Time Machine
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant (The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack (Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing (Who Goes There?)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce (Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo (Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

Okay, so I didn't read all of Jurassic Park or War of the Worlds, but I tried. I had to return War of the Worlds to the library before I could finish it, and the writing was probably above me at the time I tried reading it. But I did listen to the radio broadcast on audio cassette, if that makes up for it. Oh, and for Dune, I saw the newer miniseries, or at least part of it, but I own a couple of the books (all unread).

Also, I, Robot shouldn't count, or at least the one with Will Smith since that was originally an original screenplay. (It was the producers or someone who said to add some Asmovian elements to it to make it appeal to a wider audience.)

I might have watched Cocoon, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Thing, and some others, but I don't remember.

On the Origin of Stories

2008-08-18T20:22:00.003-05:00

This is modified from my original post to the Fangs, Fur, & Fey LJ community.

I think my favorite stories to work on are ones that come to me in pieces, where I get a glimpse of something here (like a character, an image, a title, etc.) and I get a glimpse of something there. For a while I think these glimpses have nothing to do with each other--and for the most part they don't.

Then something happens where I need to work on an actual story (rather than filling notebooks with random notes), and all these different, previously unconnected pieces just fit together.

So I can start with an opening line ("An angel and a demon can never be friends."), an image (all the fishes gathering at spawning time), a title (Dragon Rose: A Dragon's Love Story), a character (Pai's drawing, Rose and Striker from role-playing games), or a "what if . . ." (What if you made this a sci fi?, What would it be like to live in a world where . . . ?, or What if he didn't know that she [his girlfriend] was the supernatural he's supposed to be hunting?), but usually one of these isn't enough to get the full story. Also, I mostly rely on the "what ifs" to fill in the missing pieces of character and plot.

Because I know the origin of Pai's story the best, I will use it as an example of how one of my stories came into being.

When I was in 11th grade, I drew a picture of a girl wearing a Chinese-style dress, wore a cape, and had a sword. I named her Pai after a video game character I used to always play at my friend's house, but for the life of me can't remember the game. At the time, I think I had some notion of turning her into a superhero.

A few years later, I got this idea for a "magical girl" story (which is a Japanese manga/anime genre about a young girl who gets magical powers and can be like a superhero). Around the same time, I wanted to write about a character who had a sleepwalking dream, much like my own experience. So I named this "magical girl" story "Nothing Else Matters" in memory of the boy I had the dream about.

The story didn't really go anywhere. Fast forward a couple years to my creative writing class in my last year of college where I needed a short story to write. I had planned on working on another short story, but I got this image of a teenage girl holding a sword after a long battle with blood running down her hands, but not from the actual fighting.

My mind placed all these things together, so when it came time to write the short story (which was really chapter 1 of my new WIP), everything just fell into place. The short story was titled "Esper" (a type of magical girl who uses psychic powers or has ESP), though the title of the book changed to "Bleeding Hands". I didn't like "Bleeding Hands" as a title, because while it captures that image I had, I don't think it sounds good, plus I wanted to continue with the Metallica-themed title since I was dropping "Nothing Else Matters". So the new title is "No Leaf Clover" which I think fits the theme or the events much better.

When Writing Worlds Collide

2008-08-16T21:06:00.002-05:00

When I first started writing all the stuff I've worked on since high school, I thought that each story took place in a different world. But the more I learned about each story, the more I realized that they were all practically taking place in the same world anyway, or in a world so similar that it would be more difficult to keep the many worlds apart than it would be to combine the characters and histories all into one world.

Actually, I should mention that not all of my worlds have become one. Just that it's only been the more recent stuff that I started earlier this year that isn't part of the main world. Though I keep trying to figure out ways that they could be only to say, 1. I don't want them to be in the same world, 2. That makes absolutely no sense for them to be in the same world, or 3. That's contradictory to what I already have established in the main world.

At first I thought my characters all existed in different worlds, but then I realized that three of my characters shared a cousin. The cousin isn't even mentioned in any of the writing or the notes, only in some vague impression I have of their backstories. But that led to two characters being sisters, and the older sister's boyfriend's friend being their cousin. Though yesterday or the day before, I might have added one of my other characters and her older sister to the mix of cousins. This family is somehow highly supernatural or affected by the supernatural and the majority of them don't know it. Which begs the question: why?

I'll try not to think about this too much for the time being since I really want to finish editing Kitsune/Butterfly Mask. But who knows, maybe that'll be important somehow. Though I'm looking forward to finding out the secret behind this supernatural family.

Some Writing and a Much Needed Vacation

2008-08-12T20:01:00.004-05:00

For the time being, I've set Kitsune aside to work on a submission for a YA book I started a while ago. Hopefully, it's just a short distraction, and then a really good motivator to finish Kitsune so I can work on this other story (called No Leaf Clover).

I don't know if I'm going to do NaNo this year or not either. It depends on if I finish both Kitsune and No Leaf Clover. And if I can figure out what to write about. So if I get the other two books done, I might work on book 2 in my vampire trilogy, so we'll see.

Other than that, I'm on a much desired vacation, but don't have much time to work, since my mom and my husband's parents are here and my husband and I get to act as tour guides. It's kind of amazing how much more I'm understanding or remembering just by being here long enough, and how the different parts of history connect.

So far, we've visited the house where the Mori daimyo (feudal lord) lived in Hofu, Yamaguchi and we went to Hiroshima Castle that was built by Mori to be a very defensive castle. And tomorrow, we'll be going to Shoin Shrine in Hagi, Yamaguchi that's dedicated to Yoshido Shoin, one of the people that Mori signed a death warrant for.

Writing this makes me think of my trip to Brazil and how learning about the history there just fascinated me. While in Brazil, I had one of my good friends (who's from Brazil) explain the history to me (well, he translated what the tour guide said in Portuguese to English). And when we go to Hagi, one of my students who's a volunteer tour guide and has spent a lot of time studying the history of Hagi will give us a tour.

Urban Fantasy Fans

2008-08-03T05:30:00.005-05:00

I joined the LiveJournal community Urban Fantasy Fans today. I figured I've been reading posts there often enough that I should just join it.

Here's my introduction post, cross-posted from UFF.

LJ Name/Nickname: yttar

Are you a writer? Yes.

Are you trying to get published? Yes and no. As soon as I'm finished editing, I'll try to get my book published.

What do you write about? Right now I'm working with fox shapeshifters, but I've also written about hunters, witches, espers, vampires, faeries, and other shapeshifters. I also write a mix of modern and futuristic fantasy.

What are you reading now? Man of Many Minds by E. Everett Evans, a 1950s sci fi novel about a telepathic spy.

Who is your favorite urban fantasy author? YA author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes.

What urban fantasy book is your favorite? It's a toss up between Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong, Moon Called by Patricia Briggs, and Shattered Mirror by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes.

Who is your favorite character? Either Sarah Vida from Shattered Mirror, Risika from In the Forests of the Night, or Hai from the Kiesha'Ra Series.

Do you write fanfic? What fandoms? No.

Anything else? Currently, I'm living in the Land of the Rising Sun where I teach English as a Second Language to Japanese people of most ages, from kindergarteners to retirees.

Oh yeah, I also added a new picture. Well, it's the only one I have here, but oh well.

My husband took the picture after our first trip back from Hiroshima when we stopped at one of the rest stops off of the Interchange (the IC). While there, he got hotdogs from a vending machine.

And while I'm making changes, I think I'm changing the title of my current book from Kitsune to Butterfly Mask. I really like Kitsune as a title. And I really like Butterfly Mask. But as I've been going through the edits, I think Butterfly Mask is a more suiting title. Especially since it goes back to the first title I had for Kitsu's story, which was Butterfly Kiss, which goes back to the naming scheme of my second and third books I wrote (Whale Song and Dragon Rose).

A UF Classification

2008-07-24T20:20:00.003-05:00

Over at the Science Fiction/Fantasy writing section of the Absolute Write message board, one of the posters proposed a classification system for urban fantasy. As someone with a BS in Biology, I couldn't resist modifying his a bit.

Kingdom - SF (Speculative Fiction)
Phylum - Fantasy
Class - Urban
Order - Contemporary, Historical, Futuristic
Family - Romance, Mystery, etc.
Genus - demons, fey, shapeshifters, magic users (witches, psychics), angels, vampires, etc.
Species - author's specific interpretation of the supernatural creatures and cultures

The Typing is Finished and the Kitty Has a Name

2008-07-17T21:23:00.003-05:00

I finally finished typing up Kitsune. But after typing almost 30 handwritten pages yesterday, my wrists are incredibly sore from resting on the computer. I'm going to spend most of the day reading, and then this weekend I hope to have my husband read through it so he can give me some feedback on what's working and what isn't. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Plus, our little kitten finally has a name, and a nickname (but you know how that goes). His name is Saru, which is Japanese for monkey. His nickname is monkey, because he really is a little monkey. If I'm standing up and wants attention he'll just dig his nails in and climb up my leg. Though is nickname is also Georgie. From the monkey Curious George.

The Cutest Thing

2008-07-15T10:50:00.004-05:00

My husband got me the cutest thing for my birthday. It's a tan and white kitten. Of course, he isn't as cute as Vivi was when we got her, but he's still cute. He doesn't have a name yet, but only because I'm waiting to be inspired.

He has a birth defect that makes his tail shorter than normal, an infection in his right eye that may or may not make him permanently blind, and fleas. Since we both have Thursday morning free, we're going to go shopping for him. You know, to get things like a flea collar or anti-flea shampoo, some toys, a food dish and a water dish (he's using some plates right now).

As soon as I get pictures uploaded to the computer, I'll add one here.

Oh, and just like kitties everywhere, he wants to claim the computer as his.

The Ideas Keep Coming

2008-07-14T19:14:00.002-05:00

Among other revisions necessary for my story, I've been playing with the idea of giving it a new opening. I figure for a semi-action novel, the opening needs to start with a lot more action (because so far, the action doesn't really start until chapter 2). And last night, I finally figured out how to do that. Or, what that starting action should be. Plus, if I do it right, it should create some additional suspense. Of course it means I'll be creating a new chapter 1, chapter 1 will become chapter 2, I'll create a new chapter 3, and chapter 3 will become chapter 4 etc. But then later on, there's a chapter or two that I want to remove from book 1 and put into book 2 (with some changes, of course. But I won't get to that until I've finished this one.)

I haven't made any changes to the story yet. So far, I've just been taking notes on what new ideas I come up with as I've been typing my novel. It's probably a good thing too, since I don't know if I'll keep all the new ideas I have, or if they even make sense for the story. But once I have my novel typed (which will hopefully be by either Thursday or Friday), I can make a list of all the changes I want to make a list of all the changes I want to incorporate, so I'm not adding unnecessary changes.

I still have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm still pretty excited about all the work I have to do.

Out of My Comfort Zone and Loving It

2008-07-14T19:11:00.001-05:00

I don't know exactly what counts as a non-standard genre for me. I guess I could say Kitsune does.

1. While it's a love story like pretty much everything else I've written, Kitsu sort of has a relationship with many different guys (but she's still only with one guy at a time).

2. It's sci fi. And while I've written sci fi before, this one has pretty much nothing to do with Earth. So while some sci fi writers can say "such and such technology works like such and such technology from Earth, only more sci fi-y, I can't do that. Needless to say, my descriptions a bit lacking since I don't know how to describe it in non-Earth terms.

3. Kitsu's also a spy. This is what makes her story the most outside of my genre. I've never read a spy novel and I've only seen a few spy movies other than James Bond. I wouldn't have made Kitsu a spy if I didn't think it'd be fun, but it is by far the most challenging thing to work with.

Actually, I used to think the sci fi part was the most challenging thing, and then last weekend I started watching Alias, and that's generated a whole bunch of questions from me and my husband about the inner workings of her world that I just hadn't considered before, but would make sense. So now, not only do I have to change things about the plot in book 1, but I have change parts of the world. Hopefully, by the time I get through with all the new world building and it gets fully integrated into the plot, I'll have a really, really good story.

Also because of Kitsune, I'm breaking away from the genre I normally read, which is mostly I read urban fantasy. The book I'm currently reading is a thriller. And next up will be a couple sci fi and spy novels.

I guess though, because Kitsune is so far out of what I normally write, and because I want to make it as good as I can, I'm exploring things that I wouldn't have before working on Kitsune, like reading thrillers and finding out that I like them.

A Short Break

2008-07-11T09:35:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm taking a short break from typing up Kitsune to work on a short story. It shouldn't take long, since it can only be 1000 words.

Basically, I was looking into the Writing Challenge on the Women of the Otherworld message board, and saw some possible requirements for the next challenge and was inspired. The requirements I'm following for this story are 1000 words, nothing supernatural, and an unusual point of view (like a pet dog's point of view).

So my story is called, "My People" and it's based on true events, only it'll be from the perspective of my Pomeranian, Vivi. (Yes, that's the cute puppy in the picture in the sidebar.)

I want to finish the short story this weekend, along with typing up the rest of Kitsune. But I'm really far behind on Kitsune, since I didn't type anything on Tuesday or Thursday (the one day I actually have a lot of time to get work done), and I didn't make my page count on Wednesday. Also, I don't think I'll make my page count for Friday. So it might take me another week to finish typing Kitsune.

On the plus side, I have a bunch of notes and a couple of new directions the story could go. Actually, I'm not sure if the new directions are a good thing or not, since sometimes when my mind jumps on an idea, all these other ideas come flooding into my head. And usually sometime later, I look back at what I wrote, at what I was certain was the *best* idea ever, only to realize that perfect idea doesn't fit with everything else I have in the story and/or world, either it's contradictory or just plain stupid. Though once in a while, I manage to get a few good ideas that really to propel my plot, story, characters, etc. into new and exciting directions.

Anyway. I'm probably going to hold off on engaging or dismissing any of my new plot points until I've finished typing Kitsune, and thus reading this version. Hopefully, when I get to the end, I'll have a better idea of what the story needs. Then I'll be able to have a big brainstorming session with my husband, and see if his perspective sheds some necessary light needed to reign in the next draft.

Progress and New Ideas

2008-07-04T21:31:00.002-05:00

I've been typing up Kitsune at a pretty good pace and I hope to be done by next weekend. When i first started typing it up and rereading what I had written, I was like, Aww, this is so horrible. How can I ever make any sense out of this? To, These chapters don't belong in book 1, they should go in book 2. I mean, the stuff is really interesting, and I want to read more, but I think it will be better if I save it. And finally in the last couple days, I got this reaction, Hey, this stuff's getting really good. I think this is where the plot should really start.

So yesterday at work, I wrote a new short synopsis to give the basic overview of the beginning of the novel. Well, at least what will be the new-ish beginning. Plus, I've already started to think of the new draft as Butterfly Mask, so we'll see which title I go with when it eventually gets finished.

The writing's going good for me and I'm generating a million and one new ideas, but all for this story (which is always a good thing).

Fireworks

2008-07-04T21:03:00.003-05:00

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

I don't have much to say, only that this year is my third year without being able to watch the fireworks. And yes, it makes me kind of sad. Before now, I never really realized how much I liked watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

The first year I skipped them (in 2006) was because my husband and I were in Mankato for the day, so we spent time with one of our friends we had met while we were in college. We probably could have seen the fireworks, except since he had two small children, they were already sleeping, etc., so my husband decided to spend more time with our friend rather than seeing the fireworks. I only agreed, because I thought, Hey, I'll be able to watch them next year. Right?

Only in 2007 we were in South Korea. And we didn't come back until July 13th. So much for seeing fireworks that year.

And finally this year, we are in Japan, but we got a few fireworks. Back in May (on our wedding anniversary, actually), there was a fireworks festival in Ajisu, where we used to live before moving to Ouchi Yata. But they also sell a bunch of fireworks at the store, so my husband picked some up and we lit a few off. We probably would have lit more except it was starting to sprinkle. And I always feel wired when we're doing something that the legality of it is questionable. My husband said it should be fine since they sell them at the convenience store. But I guess I'm still used to living in Minnesota where up until a few years ago, fireworks were illegal. Sure, that didn't stop people from having them, but it did stop people from lighting them where others can see.

With all of this, it got me thinking about two things.

1. I love watching fireworks on the Fourth of July, and it feels like there's something missing when I don't get to see them. It's odd because I don't feel particularly patriotic, but watching large fireworks displays without it being the Fourth of July just seems really weird to me. Like there's an emptyness in watching the fireworks without that feeling that these (the fireworks) are in celebration of our nation's independence and freedom.

2. I find it just a tab bit ironic that, to me, fireworks means independence and freedom and the US as a whole, when fireworks were invented by a different culture.

The Sky is so Blue

2008-06-29T05:36:00.000-05:00

Cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

When I was in 6th grade, my English teacher kept pretty much all of my writing (same for everyone else in my class), then gave it back to me when I was a senior. The first piece of writing in the folder was a poem called, "The Sky is so Blue." Even after reading it a few times, I still couldn't believe that I wrote it. So I told my friend (who had been in the same English class as me in 6th grade) that my teacher made a mistake and gave me someone else's poem. My friend read it and said, "Oh no, I remember you writing this poem." And I have absolutely no memory of doing so. The weirdest thing is that the poem is really good. I mean, I can even read it now (almost fourteen years later), and go, "Wow, how did I ever manage to write anything like that?" It just makes me kind of sad that I don't actually remember writing it.

Finished

2008-06-27T11:31:00.003-05:00

Here's me when I got home from work today.

103253 / 120000 words. 86% done!

So the 120,000 words is just an estimated word count. But I have just finished chapter 31, and now I only have the epilogue left to write. I highly doubt the epilogue will be 17,000 words long. Or even 7,000. And then there's the revisions.

Here's me about three hours later.

104426 / 104426 words. 100% done!

Finished.

Talking About Plot

2008-06-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

This is mostly cross-posted from The Otherworld message board. I started this post over a day ago, and now that I'm finally returning to it, I don't remember exactly what I was going to say. Ah, such is life and getting distracted by fun things (like visiting Japanese temples) and work things (like needing to write English tests).

I almost always talk to my husband about what I'm writing. Whether I'm at the beginning stages of planning something and need some example plot placement holders to give me an idea of how to get to the next major plot point. Or if I just need to rethink the direction the story's going in. I'll also usually talk to him a lot while I'm actually writing the story. Like if I've worked my way into a corner and can't find a way out of it, I'll try to explain what's going on with the plot and if any relevant things have changed since I last talked to him. Sometimes he helps me figure out what's going to happen next. But most of the time, just talking to him puts what I'm working on in a different perspective, and that's usually enough to get my own brain to start thinking again.

Though sometimes I won't talk to my husband about something I'm working on. At least not write away. Like on Friday, I wrote a scenes where I had intended two characters to work together, only they were fighting themselves when they were supposed to be fighting someone else. I didn't tell my husband about this right away because 1. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this interaction in the next draft or not and 2. I wasn't sure what my husband would think of it. So usually for things like that (things that I'm not so sure about), I usually wait until my husband's reading the story for him to find out what I wrote. As it was, I don't to a problem in my writing on Saturday and ended up explaining that "change" to my story so I could get him to help me with my latest problem.

Anyway, on Friday, I broke 100,000 words. And on Saturday, I finished Chapter 30. Which means I only have Chapter 31 and the Epilogue left to write. So I'm pretty excited about that, and I hope to finish this draft before my birthday on Sunday (June 29). Of course I probably won't make the 120,000 words, but that's okay. Right now, I just want to have it finished. Finally. So I can start the revisions.

The Otherworld discussion also brought up these two questions, which I'm more or less paraphrasing.

1. What are the benefits of discussing your plot?

I guess I like discussing my plots because a. it lets me know that at least one other person (usually more) thinks my idea is as interesting as I do and b. my husband is pretty good at reigning in some of my more far-fetched ideas. Especially the ones that really have nothing to do with the story and entertaining the ideas is only a way to procrastinate from the actual writing.

2. Does discussing your plot improve your writing?

I don't know if it necessarily improves my writing, but helps improve my logic and reasoning, and it definitely helps strengthen the ideas behind the plot.

How Teaching ESL has Affected my Writing

2008-06-17T19:37:00.003-05:00

Since teaching English as a second language both in South Korea and now in Japan, I can safely say that it has affected my writing, and perhaps my speaking ability.

First, I'll start with the good stuff. When I have students ask "Why?" about parts of English grammar and things that are so natural to me as a native speaker and writer of English, I have to stop and actually think about why something works that way. If I were speaking to another native speaker, I'd give some excuse like, "It just sounds better that way."

But that doesn't work in Korea or Japan. For one, neither Korean nor Japanese has plurals. So when a Japanese student says, "I like cat," I'm pretty sure they mean, "I like cats." But if a Korean student made the same mistake, I wouldn't be as sure about their true meaning. That's mostly because saying "I like cat" is like saying "I like to eat cats," which is a perfectly acceptable food in Korea.

Now for the bad stuff. Since coming here to teach English, I'll make sentences like, "I started working on this story longer ago than I started working on Kitsu's story," and I'll stare at the sentence thinking that something's wrong with the phrase "longer ago," but I have no idea if that's a viable English sentence or not. Though I'd like to keep the "when in doubt" thought going, and hopefully assume I'll be smart enough to get rid of this questionable phrases in my writing. (Unless of course I'm writing a first person story about a girl who's teaching ESL abroad and want to keep her messed up English "authentic," but I don't see that happening anything soon.)

I'll also look at a work that my subconscious knows is spelled correctly, but for the life of me, I think it's misspelled somehow. Which can be a pain when writing everything out on paper where I don't have a spellchecker to tell me if I spelled the word wrong or not. But, this one's really only a minor thing since I'm pretty bad at spelling to begin with.

And the last one is that I never thought about English as being "fresh" or I suppose "stale" until I came to Japan. I had one of the other teachers at my school who's been in Japan longer than I have ask me for help with one of the "Why?" questions of English grammar because my English was "fresher" than his. (Actually, the "fresher" is mine. He said, "Hey, your English's fresh.")

Nearing the End

2008-06-13T20:09:00.003-05:00

This is mostly cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

I'm on one of the last chapters in my book, and have been for over a week now. Mostly, it was because I didn't know how to write this one fight scene, so I spent some time working the ecology of Kitsu's homeworld. I have some pretty interesting stuff, but it still needs work.

Earlier this week, I wrote part of the fight scene. I basically asked myself, what's the worse that could happen to her right now? And unfortunately, what came up might not work so well for a future romantic relationship, because it might cause some people to go "And she's supposed to be madly in love with him after that? Eww." But I figure as long as it gets me to write now, it doesn't really matter what I write, I can always change it during the rewrites.

Friday afternoon, I finally got around to writing the next step in the fight scene. This will probable also need a lot of work, since I don't think I've built up to this any. When I was trying to figure out how to do the fight scene, I just asked, "What would be a really cool way for her to win?" Though thinking about it now, I wonder if it would be better to ask, "What would happen if she lost?" or "Would anything cool happen if she lost?" Actually, come to think of it, I think she does need to lose.

Even though there are only about two chapters and an epilogue to the story, I still have to write about five more chapters because of the epilogue. Basically the last two chapters I have to write will be chapters 1 and 2 for book 2, so I can have the epilogue line up properly.

Really, I should be taking my own advice from an earlier post about not thinking too much and just letting it all click. Then I'd probably be wasting less time doing "research" that I *think* will help me write, and spend more time doing the actual writing. Especially since I would really like to get it finished soon so I can move on to editing it.

Yukata Fun

2008-06-07T19:28:00.006-05:00

For our fifth wedding anniversary, my husband bought me a yukata (or a summer kimono). While he was at the store, he made sure he had everything, including the yukata, the obi (belt), the geta (wooden sandals), and a purse. Only when we searched on the internet for how to put a yukata on, we found out that we were missing the sashes to tie the yukata in place, as well as a slip/petticoat type thing to go under the yukata.

Luckily, one of my husband's students is a beautician and often helps women put on their yukata and kimono. Actually, I've heard that many women don't know how to put one on properly so they usually have someone help them.

We met with my husband's student Saturday night. She had a petticoat I could wear, as well as the sashes to hold the yukata in place. As she put the yukata on me, my husband videotaped it, so if we ever have difficulties, or we're back home in the US, he'll be able to watch it and figure out what he's doing. She taught him how to tie the easiest bow, or the Butterfly, which he said was a lot like tying a bowtie (if only he actually knew how to tie one). Lastly, she stuck a cardboard piece in front, inside the obi to make it look a lot smoother. Also, since it was my first time wearing geta, she advised me to wear the tabi (socks that are divided between the big toe and all the small toes) my husband picked up so I wouldn't get a blister between my toes, even though they never wear socks with yukata.

I was just about ready to ask my husband's student where I could buy the sashes and whatnot, when she said she was giving us everything but the petticoat. So hopefully when my husband and I go out shopping on Sunday, we'll be able to find one for me.

Also, this last week I found out that both his parents and my mom will be coming to Japan for a week in August. So I'm looking forward to their visit, especially since it means they'll be bringing Vivi with them. But I figured at least one of our moms will want to buy a yukata (since they're a lot cheaper than kimono), and now we know all the stuff you really need to have everything, including a video of how to put it on.

We were also lucky because this weekend there is a firefly festival going on in Yamaguchi. We went to a fireworks festival in Ajisu on our anniversary (May 17th), but I was somewhat disappointed I didn't get to wear my yukata. But after getting my yukata put on, we went to the firefly festival. We might go back tonight so I can play the "fish game" where you use a flimsy or quickly dissolving scoop to try to catch a fish or two. Most people can't actually do it. Though I have a student who caught a bunch of fish playing this game. But my husband told me if I caught a fish playing that game, he would buy me an aquarium to keep them in (pretty handy for keeping fish, neh?)

Inspiration, Take 2

2008-06-03T20:45:00.003-05:00

I actually get most of my inspiration from movies, but in a way, it's not really inspiration for a completely new story. It's more like somewhere in my brain, I think, hey, I should turn that into a story. But I don't do anything with that idea until I see a movie that's similar to my idea, and I think, that would be a really fun story to work on.

Examples
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- This made me want to write a pirate story, but rather than returning to the pirate story I had started a couple years before, I started a new one (but that was partly because I was living in South Korea and my notes were in Minnesota). I guess you could say the inspiration for the plot came when I asked one of the other English teachers what came to mind when they thought of Eastern dragons, which I think they said "fate."

Vampire movies -- Whether they're good or really, really bad, watching vampire movies always makes me want to work on Standard Issue. I don't even know how the idea got started, just that my husband was like, why is it that in every vampire movie all the vampires have to have the same "standard issue" clothing (of you know, black and leather and tight).

B-Rate horror movies -- I was creating a character for a role-playing game set in the modern day that was supposed to be vaguely horror-ish (the game, not the character), when I needed something for her and her "sidekick" to do while the guys tried to show off, thinking they knew how to destroy the big bad monster. So my character and her sidekick watched b-rate horror movies, which seemed appropriate considering that the adventure seemed like it was taken straight from a B-horror movie anyway. Add a few writing exercises for one of my creative writing classes at college, giving the character a degree in zoology, and well . . . I'm still waiting to write Mission #1: Tank Riding Zombies, but my husband wants to start a webcomic with her and the character he created in our creative writing class.

Okay, so those last weren't exactly the initial inspiration for the story, but close enough.

I also get inspiration from dreams, music, and drawings.

Dreams -- I haven't really dealt much with the stories I want to write based off some of my dreams, but their basic ideas are in the background for the main world that my stories take place in. I call them the Psychic series, but mostly they're biopunk. Though I wrote one short story in that series while I was in Korea, but that inspiration came from the high security system for the place I worked at and how seemingly easy it was to get around it. (Of course, I wish I had that short story in Japan with me rather than in MN since I would really like to edit it and submit it.)

Music and Drawings -- Pai's story is actually inspired from both. Pai is a character I drew during 11th or 12th grade, though she didn't become a character until sometime after I was in college. Sometime later I was listening to "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica and I thought it would be fun to write a story based on the lyrics to that song. Well, since most things don't turn out how you think they will, especially when it comes to plotting, I've decided that the song that much better describes her first book is "No Leaf Clover" by Metallica. But if I'm lucky, book 4 will finally give me the "Nothing Else Matters" type of story.

There are many other places I can get inspiration from, and each of my stories probably has their own inspiration story, but that'll be saved for a later time.

When Everything Clicks: Or What Happens When I Stop Thinking Too Much

2008-06-01T20:55:00.006-05:00

This is sort of cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

One of my favorite things about writing is when everything just clicks together. The first version of Kitsune was a jumbled mess called Butterfly Kiss that became even more of a mess when I tried revising it. So last August, I dumped the original plotline for something completely different, one that featured a new character as the villain. With such a simple change (having a different villain), the whole story just seemed to come together. I was amazed at how easy it was to plot out the main events. Of course the writing is a bit trickier, but that's always the more difficult part of the creative process for me.

Only I was having a new problem. I had always wanted to write Butterfly Kiss as the first book in a trilogy, with the second book called Butterfly Shadow and the third book Butterfly Essence/Soul. Unfortunately, I also thought of calling it the Fox Chronicles, and I figured something labeled "Chronicles" should be more than three books long, and maybe closer to being five books. But with everything I had shoved into Butterfly Kiss, I didn't think I would get much more than those three books. But, when I changed the central focus of book one (now called Kitsune), created a new villain and thus a different aspect of my world, I opened the Fox Chronicles up to the potential for a very long series.

Of course the problem I was having in May was how was I going to recombine what I had initially written with Kitsune to make a cohesive overall plot for the series.

When I was in tae kwon do, the black belts and red belts who tried helping me always told me, "You think too much. Just stop thinking, and it'll come to you," or something like that. It didn't matter who was giving the advice, but it was always along those lines. And, you know, the few times I was able to actually "stop thinking," I was really good. I didn't make any really dumb mistakes and I could ignore the other people in the room while I was testing. The same thing applied when I practiced board breaking. Every time I thought about kicking the board, my foot just stopped right at the board, because I was too afraid of hurting myself. When I finally stopped thinking about breaking the board, and just did it, it didn't even hurt.

Anyway, about a week ago, I just started writing a basic outline for the series. It was something simple like a few notes on what the book is about, who the villain is, who the love interest is, and Kitsu's main character arc or the main theme/controlling idea of the book. At first, I didn't think I'd have much of a plot for any of the other books, but it was quite easy for me to come up with a basic plot for the next three books in the series. I was kind of amazed at how easy everything just seemed to fit together. Plus, this quick outline for the Fox Chronicles, books 1 to 4 covers Kitsune, Butterfly Kiss (now divided into books 2 and 3), and a new idea I came up with after introducing Kadin and the Foxes in book 1 instead of in book "yes" (meaning, I needed to introduce the Foxes, I just had no idea when that was going to happen). Plus, these first four books lay the groundwork for the politics that I want to deal with throughout the series.

As for the events of Butterfly Shadow and Butterfly Soul/Essence. Well, Shadow can be worked in pretty much anywhere after book 4. While the events of Butterfly Soul/Essence will get divided up much like Butterfly Kiss. Since the probable events from Soul/Essence dealt with a lot of the backstory for the galaxy in general, sort of like the "real history" of how the galaxy (politically speaking) came to be. Likewise, Soul/Essence dealt with the far future of the galaxy. All in all, I think the story will be better by having it split up. But the events in the far future will still be the last events dealt with in the Fox Chronicles.

Now I just need to get back to writing so I can finish Kitsune and find a home for it.

Movies and Inspiration

2008-05-15T04:15:00.004-05:00

I have this habit that when I watch a movie I really enjoy, I usually have one of two reactions.
1. That is the best movie in the world, I wish I could write a story as good as that.
2. I want to write something like that.

The last movie this happened with was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. So I spent about a month outlining a pirate novel, called The Emerald Dragon. It's about a girl named Teague, the youngest dolphin shapeshifter, and the Emerald Dragon, a statue that controls fate. Of course I didn't get much past the first chapter because I went back to working on Kitsune.

The newest movie this happened with was She's the Man, and I kind of got two stories out of it.

The first story's about a character I played in a fantasy role-playing game about a young noble lady who gets mad at her parents for trying to force her into a marriage with a proper noble. She's not too keen on the idea, so she uses a magical medallion to disguise herself as a man so she can enter the jousting tournaments.

I've been wanting to work on that story since we stopped playing that game because I really like the character. Unlike most of my female characters, she's very strong in a quiet sort of way, at least while she's female. But, when the game ended, she was in the Afterlife after having carried one of the other character's dead body out of some underground vault. I don't remember exactly what was going on, but I do know that it was very important for my character to win the other character's respect. Mainly because he was the closest to seeing through her disguise, and she didn't want anyone to know what was really going on until she was ready to reveal it herself. (Which if she had her way wouldn't be until she found a man worthy of her.)

But rather than starting that story at the beginning, with the girl getting upset about her parents trying to set up another arranged marriage for her and then her using the medallion to disguise herself as a man, I wanted to start the story closer to where we stopped playing the game. Which is in the Afterlife. Only something went wrong. Because instead of being a female in the Afterlife, she's male. And she finds herself falling for the rogue-assassin whose dead body she had carried until she died.

The best title I have for this right now is We Fell in Love in the Afterlife, but I think it's a little too long.

Though for whatever reason when I start putting it to paper, I ended up making the main character a high school girl from the 21st century who somehow travels to this fantasy world where this young noble lady lives. And in the process of figuring out how to get out of the girl's body and back home, she ends up needing to learn how to joust and falls in love with the rogue-assassin. I don't think the two character concepts mesh very well, but my brain seemed to think so.

The second story I started working on is called Catfight, at least for the time being. It's also another story I've been wanting to write for quite some time. This one has to do with high school, tae kwon do, love letters, and girls fighting over the same guys. Unlike pretty much every other story I have ever written, this one has absolutely nothing to do with the supernatural, sci fi, or fantasy.

I haven't written much in either. But I want to work on Catfight until June, when I plan to go back to Kitsune.

Writing Prompts

2008-05-07T19:30:00.003-05:00

Mostly cross-posted from the Den of Shadows.

Angel Love, Demon Love is a story about angels and demons. It started from a short story I wrote during college when I was in one of my moods where I just needed to write something and have it finished. Then I took a creative writing class and the story just exploded.

Rather than outlining the expanded version of Angel Love, Demon Love like I normally do, I thought it would be fun to take the vague idea of plot from the short story I had written and write the story based on writing exercises and prompts. This actually wasn't my idea to start with. I hadn't planned on it being more than the short story that it was, and all I was going to do with it was maybe revise the short story and try to sell it. But then, like I said, I took that creative writing class.

For the first short story or chapter of a novel that we were supposed to turn in, the teacher gave us a prompt to write some part of our story or something about our characters. At first I thought it was really stupid because by writing based on some prompt, I thought it would eliminate my creativity. Instead, I found the opposite to be true. And I found out there was a lot more to Xander and Cortillya's story to tell than what I wrote in the original short story.

But now, I want to write their entire story (or the vast majority that remains of it) based off of writing exercises and prompts.

Writing Again

2008-05-03T05:33:00.006-05:00

It's been a while.

It's Golden Week. Which means no classes, no school, no work for a whole week. And while I had planned to spend the week cleaning and writing, I didn't get as much done as I wanted. Well, actually, I haven't gotten any writing done. But, I've been thinking about the last bit of stuff I wrote about two weeks ago, and have decided that maybe those few pages aren't as bad as I thought they were.

Like usual, I wasn't really thinking about what I was writing, and just sort of wrote some complications for my character that I hadn't planed on. So I was going to get rid of all that, and start the scene over. Only now, as I dread redoing the scene, I'm thinking, hey it might not be as bad as I thought it was. I reread the last sentence of that scene a little bit ago, and I thought, hey, I want to find out what happens.

In other news, I finished my synopsis for Kitsune, which I sent (along with a query letter and the first three chapters) to my mom so she could send it to the SHOMI writing contest for me. I was afraid that it wasn't going to make it since it needed to be in by April 30th, and my mom didn't send it until the 28th. But it arrived.

Now I just have to wait until July 1st to see if I'm a finalist or not.

Weekends in Japan

2008-04-12T22:37:00.003-05:00

Apparently, I haven't updated in a while. Oh well, here goes. This one's cross-posted at the Den of Shadows. For some reason, I have this habit of reading that message board, writing something, and then thinking, hey, I should post this at my blog.

Anyway, here's my weekend in Japan, and why I don't get as much work done on the weekends as I should.

While I haven't finished my synopsis yet, what with going to two different shrines so my husband could take pictures of the falling cherry blossoms and continuing with our weekend hobby of renting really bad movies. (And since there might be a sale at the rental place we might go back to get more today. Bad movies for 80 yen, how can you go wrong? Seriously, it's a bad thing. Because some of them are really, really bad. It's even worse when the Japanese covers make them look like they might actually be quality. Anyway. I'm thinking about starting a bad movie review blog so others can share my pain. Actually, I should say that I find watching bad movies to be fun, pain and all.)

On the plus side, I found a problem with the first draft of my story, and a fairly easy way to fix it. Originally I had my character get on this spaceship and then find out the the assignment she's supposed to do will also be using this spaceship. In other words, it was all very convenient. So when I was writing about this in my synopsis today, I was like, Well that doesn't make any sense. That's sort of convenient, don't ya think? But luckily I picked up on it so I can fix in my manuscript. And have her get on the ship because of the investigation she does before she gets on the ship. (Rather than staying on the ship because of the investigation she does while she's on the ship.)

Break time's over. I need to get back to writing my synopsis. (The sooner I get it done, the sooner I can go rent more bad movies for 80 yen. Yay!)

Actually another non-writing little rant, just because it'll interfere with my writing time. Why does it always seem to be bright and sunny and hot on the days I decide not to do laundry, but cool and drizzling on the days I decide to do laundry? (Also known as why can't the Japanese have dryers so I don't need to hang my clothes on the line. Seriously, you begin to appreciate the little things in American culture - like dryers and how simple it is to do laundry - when you live in Japan. But then, in America, you don't get random Japanese guys walking by your apartment and shouting, "Yo!" or "Bye-bye!" because they are the only two things they know in English. -- Okay, mini-rant over now.)

Angel Love, Demon Love Snippet 2

2008-04-07T23:48:00.001-05:00

Here's another small snippet of Angel Love, Demon Love (cross-posted at the Den of Shadows message board). The location was a dead city.

Cortillya had never understood what her mother meant. Even if she had, she would have ignored her mother's warnings about The City being dead, and traipsed down there to visit Xander anyway.

But now she looked upon the city with a different light. After living with the demons, Cortillya knows that her mother's words could never be more true. The City was dead. Not only that, it was like all the humans who continued to live in The City had the very essence that made them humans sucked out of them until they were nothing more than empty vessels imitating life.

She finally understood why it was so important to save the humans, even when they didn't want to be saved themselves. Only one question remained. Was it too late to save the humans even if it was too late to save herself?

Sentance Sunday - Kitsune, chapter 2, page 2

2008-04-06T20:57:00.002-05:00

Here's an excerpt from page 2 of Kitsune, Chapter 2: Followed.

Background: After kicking an old friend out of her hotel room, Sombra Alara learns that someone is following her, and she's not one for sticking around.

Well, here it is.

I painted the stylized black and red lines of a butterfly on my face--my mask--then wrapped it in an illusion. Only those who could see through illusions would be able to see it, and I hadn’t met anyone like that.

Needing a disguise, I pulled the fishnet stockings, the micromini, and the sheer top from my bag and changed. As I zipped my boots, they lengthened to my thighs. I illusioned my long red and black-tipped hair to blonde and emphasized my Caucasoid features over my Mongoloid ones and changed my eyes to violet. Lastly, I picked up my bag, which now looked like a tiny purse and was out the door.

As I passed the front desk, the elderly receptionist looked up at me. I winked and stopped to caress his cheek and kiss the corner of his mouth. If anyone asked about me, he wasn’t telling. It would ruin his chances of me ever doing that again. I didn’t let it show that the thought of doing any of the things I promised was beyond disgusting.

A LiveJournal Update

2008-04-06T20:53:00.002-05:00

Last July I abandoned my LiveJournal account. Then when I wanted to start Blogging again, I created this Blogger account. But today, I finally went through the effort of getting a new password (since I forgot my old one). So I should be updating both my Blogger and LiveJournal accounts on a regular basis, meaning starting today, the content will be mostly the same (whereas everything up to now has been completely different).

Characters and Power

2008-04-05T20:46:00.002-05:00

This is inspired from a discussion on character power at the Den of Shadows message board. Some of it may be cross-posted there.

I tend to like characters with a lot of power, but not too much power. The only problem is that it's a very thin line, and you can easily switch from having a lot of power to grotesque amounts of power. It's when the character gets to the grotesque amounts of power that drives me insane.

A problem I'm sort of having is that I've made Kitsu quite powerful. Because of her supernatural powers, her personality, her background, and the events in book one, she pretty much controls some of the most powerful men in the galaxy, and thus the galaxy. Even though she has this much power, she doesn't exactly take advantage of it. Even so I have to come up with more powerful villains to challenge her, and find believable changes to her personality. I just hope that when I finish her story (I want it to be a series), I'll have balanced her power with her responsibilities (or limitations to her power).

Actually, come to think of it, most of my main characters are quite powerful, I just try giving each one some sort of limitation so they don't seem too powerful.

First I should say, that in the Realm of Shadows, there are three things that contribute to a character's overall power level.
1. The age they first Awaken. The younger they are when they first Awaken into their powers, the more powerful they are.
2. The character's ancestry. If their parents were powerful supernaturals, then there's a good chance they are too. Though supernaturals don't have come come from two supernatural parents (there are full supernaturals, half-supernaturals, cursed supernaturals, and reborn supernaturals), and in fact the reborn ones (who come from two completely human parents) are something to look out for (but it's a good things they're pretty rare).
3. The individual's desire to use their powers. If a character doesn't want to use their powers, they won't, and they won't be powerful. But if someone has a strong desire to use, well, that can make up for all the other factors.

So now back to my powerful characters. Mostly, I'm just mentioning my main characters and not my villains since I'm still not entirely sure who some of them are and/or I don't want to give away any potential spoilers.

From my Hunter series.
1. Rose is a powerful witch-esper. She first Awoken to her powers when she was six years old and accidentally burned her house down. As a result, she bound her own powers and up until she gets to college and starts being hunted as a supernatural, she believes she is fully human, and that all things supernatural are *impossible*, so essentially, she has no powers.
2. Striker is a natural hunter. He first Awakens when he's fifteen and a werewolf is sent to kill him. Only the werewolf kills his family and he kills the werewolf. His power comes from his strong conviction, his desire to get revenge on his family and to make sure no one else has to go through what he went through. Striker is one of my few characters to get a re-Awakening, in which he actually loses his Conviction, and thus all of his powers.

From my Esper series.
1. Pai is a powerful witch-esper. Unlike her sister (Rose), she doesn't Awaken until she's in high school. Due to her destiny with an Ancient Korean sword, she has a lot of people coming after her. While she isn't necessarily strong enough to deal with them right away, she's too stubborn to back down from a fight (even when she knows she should). In addition to having a strong supernatural background, she also has a very strong desire to use her powers (though not for any reason as noble as Striker's).
2. Aiden is the last of the bird shapeshifters. Just being able to survive all the hunters makes him pretty powerful, but his determination comes from questing for the legendary phoenix who is said will be able to bring back the bird shapeshifters.

From the Forsaken trilogy.
1. Ayako. She meets the Forsaken, the most powerful vampire in existence.

Other characters from the Fox Chronicles.
1. Kaitou is a hunter. Unlike Striker, he specializes in Foxes. Due to his upbringing, Kaitou was force to semi-Awaken at a young age. He didn't fully Awaken until he was 15, when he killed his first Fox.
2. Sascha is a powerful telepath (esper). While he can't necessarily control his powers (like he can't turn them off), he's found a way to "deal" with them (which is blasting loud music in his ears 24/7 in hopes of not always knowing exactly what the people around him are thinking).

3. Natsuke's past self. (While he's not exactly in the Fox Chronicles, this is the best place to put him.) He is the only human supernatural (a witch/mage) to have such a desire to use magic and gain power that the gods themselves conspired against him.

Other characters.
1. Anubis. He is a jackal shapeshifter who's ability to (magically) heal people surpasses any other Jackal's ability except for the Anubis who lived in Ancient Egypt. The only problem is, he has no desire to use it.
2. My zombie (who's currently nameless). He somehow manages to rise above the other zombies and look beyond scavenging for his next meal. Then he learns that he has a ghost out there, who somehow managed to look beyond his immediate situation. If only the two could find each other.

Writing Goals

2008-04-03T20:51:00.008-05:00

While I could have kept this post with my Clichés in Fantasy post, I decided to make a new one. Though this is really more just a note to myself of what I should be working on.

1. Finish writing, rewriting, and editing Kitsune, volume one of the Fox Chronicles. Write the synopsis, cover letter, bio, etc. for submitting Chapters 1 - 3 to the SHOMI Fiction Writing Contest by April 15. Type, rewrite, and edit during May and June (possibly July) of 2008. If SHOMI doesn't accept it, then I'll send it to agents and editors.

2. Rewrite and edit book one of the Forsaken trilogy, Like a Frothing Rabid Dog is Adorable. Rewrite the synopsis to match the edits made to the book. Once Ayako is suitably YA or Rabid Dog is long enough to be an adult novel, I will return to submitting it to agents and editors. (In a way, I'd prefer to keep it short and make it more YA.)

3. Start something new. This all depends on where I'm at. If I'm still in Japan when all of this is done, I have only the beginnings of novel ideas and plots that I started for the SHOMI contest (and ditched in favor of Kitsune). But if I'm back in Minnesota, than I have a whole slew of over books and novel ideas to go through.

a. Kerrianne May's story. I love the idea of the Intragalactic Fighting Tournament. And I think this story has a lot of potential. Also, I want to find out more about Lucius Ambrose.

b. I'm also curious to explore the new world of Aurora Dawn and Kala Black with gaias and ganas, and exorcists and revenants (their version of vampires).

c. Or I might return to the world of Whale Song and Dragon Rose, now that it seems like I've gained enough distance from the original messed up plots to pull them apart and reform them into something really good.

4. Admittedly, I would really like to skip #3 in favor of getting more than just four or five chapters done on No Leaf Clover. But that'll only happen if I'm in MN.

Clichés in Fantasy

2008-04-03T20:09:00.004-05:00

I just remembered that Dragon Rose also had a talking cat, named Caabba, who, along with the help of the prince, helped my heroine realize her true destiny.

This has kind of got me thinking about why I stopped writing this book in the first place.

1. I had no plot for it. And what outline I had written, which I was certain would solve all of my story problems, was in some blue spiral-bound notebook that has since then disappeared. Of course, I tried writing a new outline, but it just didn't seem the same because it wasn't that outline.

2. It was about a 17 year old girl named Allokohottí (Alloko for short), who had no history prior to walking into the first scene of the book, which was a mock combat scene with the prince Doda. And for some reason, this lack of a background never bothered me, but there was no explanation for why she didn't have one.

3. Even though Doda was the prince, he couldn't stand politics, and would rather spend his time in the library reading history books. And then he found the book that would draw him into the plot. It was an unnamed book, but it talked about the true history of dragons, the birth of Dragon Rose, Dragon Lady (the woman who rescued her since she was a runt and most likely wouldn't have survived her first fight), Dragon Lord/Master (the human form of the dragon who trained her to be a good fighter), and the true identity of Dragon Lord/Master, who turned out to be one of the Keepers of the Old Ways and as such was forbidden to fall in love with Dragon Rose. This book also talked about the last days of the planet Dreyverzon and the secret history of how his people came to be on his own planet. So Doda sets off on this quest to help Alloko (whom he has a crush on) to realize her destiny.

4. As it turns out, Alloko is the reincarnation of Dragon Rose, cursed by Dragon Lord/Master all those years ago, all because he fell in love with a non-Royal dragon. Only, Doda discovers that Dragon Rose was in fact a Royal dragon, and the last remaining heir of the original dragon pair (so the only Royal alive).

5. There was something to do with the king being evil (which Doda was oblivious to), and some rebellion with the leader of some cult (because she liked the king, only he was unfaithful to his wife to be with her, and in the end went back to the queen). Yeah, I wasn't really sure where I was going with that.

6. Once Alloko and Doda and Caabba finally made it to the planet (as they realized that Dreyverzon is just one of its three moons), they only have a few days left if they want to break this curse. (It's an astronomical event that occurs once every couple hundred thousand years or something.)

7. When they finally break the curse, Alloko is transformed into her full dragon glory. And Kalidor's entrapped spirit breaks free to realize that the one he loved was really a Royal, and that he had only cursed himself for the last however long for not being able to be with his one true love.

8. Now, as a romantic at heart, and since I had subtitled this A Dragon's Love Story, I always wanted Alloko to be together with Kalidor (the Keeper). Only I felt that there would be a lot of feminist people saying, "Hey, that guy's a complete jerk. He curses her, doesn't do anything to try to make it right, and then she still agrees to be with him in the end, even though all that stuff happened in a past life." Which got me thinking (that, and when my husband read it, he said he always thought Alloko and Doda would be together) who should Alloko end up with?

Now, I think I could find satisfaction if Alloko ended up with Doda and left Kalidor to his misery (hey, he earned it). But at the time, I was so set on Alloko, after becoming Dragon Rose in all her Royal dragon glory, to just go with her dragon lover. And some how that didn't sit well with me.

But back to being cliché in fantasy. Aside from the plot reasons for why I stopped writing the book, there were also some cliché reasons for why I stopped writing, or at least what I felt was cliché with my story.

1. It was about dragons. Yeah, you can't have a story titled Dragon Rose: A Dragon's Love Story without it being about dragons. But I also thought dragons were really overdone at the time. At the same time, I hadn't read many dragon books because they just didn't interest me (either the author's writing style or the plot or something), which was why I started Dragon Rose in the first place.

2. (While I didn't think this at the time, I sort of think this now.) It also had a talking cat. Actually when I first wrote this story, I thought a talking cat was something new and original. Now it seems like everyone has a talking cat.

Though really, thinking back on all of this, I don't think these two things were nearly as cliché as I thought they were at the time. Yes, a lot of people write about dragons. Yes, a lot of people include talking cats in their stories. But that isn't enough to make the whole story cliché.

In a way, it makes me really upset with myself that I didn't stay with this story. Because looking at some of the other books out there, I see bits and pieces that tell me this story could have been popular. I mean, there are romance novels about dragon shapeshifters, and my dragons could shapeshift (well, only the Royals and the Keepers could). Plus, there seems to be a lot of people who like talking cats (though, there are also those who seem to hate them).

All I can really learn from this is to not stop working on Kitsu's story until I get it finished. Otherwise, in five years time, I'll feel the same way about Kitsu's story as I feel about Dragon Rose.

Novels and Anime and Manga

2008-04-03T02:39:00.002-05:00

This one's cross-posted from the Absolute Write message board.

I think novels and manga and anime can mix, but before doing so, you have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each form. I actually think of manga and anime as two separate forms, because while they are both more visual forms, anime has to show pretty much everything, while manga only captures the essence (by showing the picture that best represents the action, where as anime shows all the action).

The best example is Sailor Moon, mostly because of all the formats it can be found in (anime, manga, musical, live-action drama, and novelizations) In each episode of the anime, Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Scouts/Senshi have to fight the youma (or whatever the bad guy of the week happens to be). Each episode slowly advances the overall plot, but mostly it's about defeating the weekly bad guy. Then you get to the live-action drama (which is called Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon or PGSM), where most of the episodes are about defeating the weekly youma, but then as the story/plot advances, it moves away from fighting the youma to fighting the Four General who control the youma, to fighting Beryl and Metallia, Tuxedo Mask, and finally Princess Moon. But if you read the manga, there is no weekly youma to defeat. When Sailor Jupiter is first introduced, she wastes Nephrite the first chance she gets. (Note, however, that I have not seen the musicals nor have I read the novelizations. Yet.)

I have at least three stories that are heavily influenced by anime. The first was a magical girl story, much like Sailor Moon. I haven't wanted to unearth the novel since I wrote "the end", but I wrote a short story using the same characters and turned it in for a creative writing class. In it, my character had to fight an evil version of herself who was trying to take over her city (had it been set in Japan, she would have destroyed Tokyo, but she made do with destroying Red Wing, MN). And yeah, she and all the other characters used attack phrases, to which I got mixed results on. Some students in my class just didn't get it. One student said he thought the average American who does not watch anime wouldn't get it, and therefore I should take it out (when I never actually considered the average American to be my audience, since it was a YA novel about a 15 year old magical girl). Another student really liked that I used attack phrases because it reminded him of rpgs. And my teacher liked it because he tried to visualize what a "Shield of Lust, Bash!" looked like. Since then I've learned that a more or less direct translation of anime to novel doesn't work.

I have another magical girl story, only she's older (17), has some esper abilities, and uses a big sword to fight other supernaturals, including other espers, mages, mummies or "psychic vampires", constructs, demons, and shapeshifters (there're probably others, I just can't think of them at the moment.) I think she's more of a Devil Hunter Yoko kind of girl, but I don't know because I've never seen the anime (though it's on my list).

And the third story was inspired by watching a lot of the more boy/fighting anime (Bleach, Inuyasha, Naruto) where they would hint at a romantic relationship between two of the characters, but that's all they would do. So I developed a story around an Intragalactic Fighting Tournament that my heroine gets "invited" to. Every contestant gets a magical sword that they must fight with, but each sword has magical powers (that need an "attack phrase" to be activated). In addition to fighting all the other people in the tournament and learning about her own magical abilities (as well as those in her sword), she ends up falling in love.

I've probably rambled on quite a bit, but yeah, I think anime and novels can mix.

Also, I would check out SHOMI. Even though it's an "action romance" line, they're still striving to combine novels with romance, action, SF, and anime/manga. So at least someone in the publishing world thinks it can be done.

The Early Works

2008-04-02T20:11:00.004-05:00

In attempting to answer someone's question at the Den of Shadows, I started thinking about some of my earliest novels.

The second novel I wrote was a trilogy called Whale Song. (I wrote the novel over the course of three spiral bound notebooks and wrote "to be continued" at the end of each book.) Whale Song was about the alien world of Avvvingteesttia, and the Avvlings who came to Earth seeking help for their dying people. The main character was the eldest Avvling princess who, following in her mother's footsteps, came to Earth to request aid. Only when her mother came, she never returned. So along with looking for her two sisters, she also needed to look for her mother, but in the process of trying to save her people, she fell in love with a human boy.

It's actually kind of hard for me to make this story sound coherent since each notebook told it's own storyline, and then because I lost the first and third notebooks, but really wanted to try publishing the story, I tried delving into what the political life was like on Avvingteesttia with no queen, since it was a matriarchal society, and now that all the women of the ruling family where running around Earth, what was happening to their father? Some how in the process, I gave them an evil aunt who was a witch named Hexe. I don't know why, I just figured I needed a villain.

This is actually the most coherent this story has sounded, and thinking about it in these very simple terms (compared to the mess I made of the novel when trying to "fix" it), it makes me think that I could actually rework this story. The plotline would need some reworking since I only have part 2 of 3. And Hexe would be dropped.

Maybe like so many other writers, a part of me does actually want to see my "first" book in print.

The first book I wrote was called Running Water and started with the wonderful (note the sarcasm) opening line of "It was a dark and stormy night . . .". It was also my first attempt at writing a short story outside of school work, and it exploded into a novel. Yeah, Running Water has no chance of ever making it to my list of novels I want to go back to.

Though Running Water wasn't actually the first book I wrote. The first-fist book I wrote was in first grade, and I owe much of my writing to my first grade teacher, Ms Ann Hall, who helped me every step of the way, or at least when I had plot problems. And the second-first book that I wrote was called Lolo and Popo's Adventure, which I wrote in sixth grade. Originally I wanted to expand a short story I had written for the class into a book, but my teacher, Ms Nelson, encouraged me to write a new story. So I wrote one about sister chimpanzees who were trying to save their rain forest home, which just happened to be the Amazon because I didn't realize Africa had any rain forests, or that chimpanzees actually lived in Africa and not South America. Since then, I've learned to do research.

The third book I wrote was called Dragon Rose; A Dragon's Love story. It was only the prequel to Whale Song because they were set in the same world, though originally Dragon Rose was in it's own world. I decided to combine them to use shared world history. But Dragon Rose is set primarily in the ancient past plus some of the "modern day" of Dreyverzon. In a way, Dragon Rose explains Avvingteesttia's history, but I don't think that bit of history is important to modern day Avvingteesttia to be in Whale Song, especially since most of Whale Song takes place on Earth.

It was about the time that the Avvling princesses' mother had the spirit of a tiger and if they wanted to save their mother, they would have to save her tiger first that I realized I needed to figure out who these "animal people" were. While they still fascinate me, and I would like to give them center stage in a story, I haven't yet. Mostly, I became preoccupied with dragons and the legend and the curse, and how the history of Dreyverzon coincided with the history of Avvingteesttia. And then the story just puttered out. Though I have a friend who, every now and then, asks, How is that dragon story of yours coming along? To which I reply, You still remember that thing? And she says, Of course. I loved that story.

So maybe at some point when I want to take a break from the supernatural Realm of Shadows, I might get around to re-visiting the more fantastical world of dragons and shapeshifters, of legends and curses, and of the horrors of modern day science, and alien princesses falling in love with human boys. Theirs is a world that really is lighter and fluffier than the Shadows.

One thing that carries over between the two worlds is that they both have strong magic, not so friendly humans, and shapeshifters. Yes, I'll admit it, my dragons were actually shapeshifters, or at least the more powerful ones were (there were actually three types of dragons in that world - dragons, the Royals, and the Keepers of the Old Ways).

Angel Love, Demon Love Snippet

2008-04-02T01:35:00.004-05:00

So over at the Den of Shadows message board, there's an Adding Depth thread in the Writer's Section. Usually I don't post there, but I've been procrastinating with Kitsu's story, while also really regretting not bringing my red Angel Love, Demon Love folder to Japan with me when I went home in January.

The location for this was supposed to be a castle, but I took a few liberties with the term, and used the Great Wall instead.

Anyway. Here's a small snippet from Angel Love, Demon Love.

Xander tried to force his head up, in an attempt to ease his suffering, but it only caused more pain. Giving up, his head flopped back down, a mere inch from the vast desert sands. He was just as his brother had left him, chained and bound upside down to a large barbed pentacle. Would the demon learn his lesson? Would he give up his rebellious ways and convert the angel Cortillya?

Not bloody likely.

He spun the large barbed pentacle around so he could gaze upon the Great City Wall one last time. Cartillya was still trapped within the City, awaiting whatever fate Abaddon deemed suitable for an Archangel's daughter. Xander dreamed of being the dashing knight of ancient legends and rushing in to rescue his princess from her prison as he passed out.

Ask Kitsu

2008-03-30T02:26:00.001-05:00

So at some point I want to have a website about my writing and I want to include this Ask Kitsu section, where it's kind of like a FAQ, only for characters. So far all I have is:

Q: What's your real name?
A: Which one do you want. I have four or five of them.

Helpful, huh?

Once again, this was cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board.

Research and Writing

2008-03-30T02:22:00.001-05:00

Also cross-posted from the Den of Shadows writing section.

Ahh, research. I love and hate research. I love it when I'm finding out things I didn't know before and and add some depth to my world, but I hate it when I have to research stuff I don't really care about to make my story seem more realistic.

Like when I first created Kitsu, I did a lot of research on the kitsune mythology, as well as Korean and Chinese fox mythology. I found some good stuff that I was able to incorporate into my character for the game I was in, I found some stuff that was complete crap, and I found some stuff that I would have liked to incorporate, but it didn't fit the world that I was role-playing in, nor does it fit the world that I'm writing her novel in.

For this book, I've researched wormholes, naked singularities, hydroponics, cloning and stem cells, Dyson spheres, astrology/zodiac signs, human population, number of stars in the galaxy, habitable planets, sci fi/futuristic weapons and armor (soldiers of the future), foxes, other wild canines and felines, other people's interpretation of shapeshifters, and anime where one of the characters uses a weapon like Kitsu's. There's probably a lot more, but that's all I can remember for now.

What's kind of weird is that when I look at this list and try to think about all the stuff I actually needed to research, it makes me wonder how I even built this world in the first place, because now all the little details seem to fit so smoothly together.

Though I still have more research to do. Like right now I'm working on this trial scene, and I'm too lazy to research various court room dramas and how different court systems work in different countries, so I can mash something together for this world. I'm thinking that's some research that will wait for the rewrite.

Music and Writing

2008-03-30T02:09:00.005-05:00

Once again, this is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board's writing section.

During my 2006 NaNo, I listened to Evanescence, Linkin Park, and the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack. Then I made the mistake of changing my music and put on "Dead Bodies Everywhere" by Korn. This song seemed fitting at the time, since I was writing about a girl who happened to stumble across a bunch of dead bodies left over by little mutant vampires who killed them, only to turn them into vampires, and for my heroine to find them rising from the dead. But instead of inspiring me to work on that story, I came up with a completely new one about a teen named Nisus who's made fun of for her "wolf eyes", is a dreamwalker (with the ability to control the dreamscape), is probably a closet werewolf (so far, she's the only actual werewolf that exists in my world, I knows there're others, but there just there), has to deal with the authorities questioning her about the dead bodies everywhere that all seemed to be lined to her, all while trying to gain her parents' approval of who and what she has become.

When I'm working on a pirate story, I like to listen to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and watch the animated Sinbad movie for background noise.

The title for Pai's story is from Metallica. Originally it was going to be Nothing Else Matters. I thought it would be really fun to write a magical girl story (think Sailor Moon or Devil Hunter Yoko) based around that song, but it never seemed to work. So the last time I worked on Pai's story, which was around December 2007/January 2008, I changed the title of the first book to No Leaf Clover for the line "Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just the freight train coming your way" because I thought this summed up the Pai's situation in the first book quite well. Though I think book 4 in her series will be titled Nothing Else Matters. Also, I was originally going to have her favorite band be Metallica, but that was before I started listening to Linkin Park. Plus, all my friends (who are also "sort of" in the story) like Linkin Park, so I think it's a much better fit to be her favorite band.

As to Kitsu's story. Well, I've been working on it so long, that I listen to whatever kind of music I feel like listening to at the time. Like recently, I was in this sort of anti-Linkin Park and anti-Evanescence mood, so I listened to Alanis Morissette, Black Eyed Peas, and Blink 182.

One thing that I find interesting is that listening to Evanescence, I am almost certain to find a song that fits at least one character in each of the different series I have. For example, I think "Haunted" fits Kitsu's and Kaitou's relationship from Kaitou's perspective, whereas "Taking Over Me" fits their relationship from Kitsu's perspective. "Tourniquet" fits Ayako's relationship with the Angel of Death (from my 2006 NaNo). I think "Everybody's Fool" may actually be a good character song for Kitsu (though I think she would disagree with me). And "Whisper" is a good character song for Rose, Pai's older sister who's one of the main characters in my Hunter series.