I Need a Hero

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.

Writing Goals

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.

I Love Dreams

Well there's been a delay in my time travel research, since this morning I had this really good dream that's begging me to turn it into a story. So I've been working on transcribing the dream into the prologue for a new novel, meaning I had to come up with character names. And then to make sure that I wasn't just making words up in my sleep, I wanted to look up a couple words on the internet (also to see what they actually mean, non-dreamwise). It's a pretty exciting story that's similar to most of the other stuff I write (like it has strong supernatural elements to it), but it also has the potential to be a lot darker and grittier than most of the stuff I write (though knowing me, it'll probably end up being "fluffy bunnies" since I can't seem to write dark for the life of me).

All I know is that my two main characters are partners, named Aurora Dawn and Kala Black. Aurora is a gaia (don't worry, in the context of this new world, I have no idea what that means either) and Kala is a ?? (though he's probably another gaia). The two of them are tracking down this man (I don't know why - but dreams aren't necessarily the best at providing motivation now are they), but they find out that he's a gana. And yes, that's a bad thing. Actually, it's a really, really bad thing since ganas (at least in the context of this world) are the most powerful supernaturals in existence. Goody for my heroes, right?