Back to Revisions

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.

A Bithday Present to Myself

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?)

A Difference of Opinion

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

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.

Being Sick, Goals, and Research

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

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

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)

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.

An Excerpt From Butterfly Mask (Kitsune)

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.

Nearing the End

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.

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

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.

Writing Again

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.

Characters and Power

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

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.

Research and Writing

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

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.

Biology Fun

I started today off by telling myself that I was going to finish editing chapters 1 - 3 of Kitsune so I can send them to my friend this afternoon for a second critique, since I want a third opinion. And well, I spent a good hour looking up stem cells, cloning, in-vitro fertilization, etc. on the internet. (Actually, I only visited a few sites too.)

See, I took a human hormone class in college because I needed 3 more credits and didn't have the prerequisites to take human biology or cell biology. As it turned out, I was glad I did. Mainly because my teacher said something about stem cells and cloning and how if you used a person's stem cells to just grow them a new whatever they needed, you would never have to worry about the body rejecting it as being foreign (though of course he said it in a lot better words than those, but he has a PhD and I only have a BS so it's understandable).

Anyway, like most writers, this got my brain thinking.

At the time I had been working on the first draft of Kitsune, back when it was still called Butterfly Kiss. But there's a lot of stuff that's held over between the two, namely the world (as expected).

The idea that I got from my teacher was what if everyone if this far future galaxy of mine had their stem cells stored in a giant stem cell bank. "Oh, hey, you're going blind in your right eye? Here, let's fix that." "You lost your arm in battle, we'll grow you a new one." And since they could go back and get each person's stem cells, they wouldn't have to worry about cloning a new ear or something on a mouse's back (poor mouse). Nor, as I mentioned above, would they have to worry about their body rejecting it.

I thought, hey, that's perfect. Since I'm dealing with a human character who was born in the galaxy (so he would have his stem cells on file) who's tracking down his changeling, who's stem cells wouldn't be on file. I thought all my work was taken care of.

Silly me.

This whole easy fix has been bugging me lately, mainly because deep down I know the science is off, and as someone with a BS in biology, that should be a problem.

So I decided to spend my morning doing some research on the internet just to refamiliarize myself with the biology involved. And as I thought, the specific type of stem cells that my people store are the embryonic ones, which are also the only ones that can differentiate into *any* cell in the body (though I think there's some debate about whether or not this is true for ones you can get out of umbilical cords).

But the problem I was having was how do they get these stem cells to have on record?

Since the embryonic ones need to be taken when the embryo is only 4 - 5 days old, I couldn't very well have a bunch of women who think they're pregnant (and to have all the women in the galaxy know after just five days of having sex? it seemed a bit unrealistic to me) go to some doctor to say, "Hey, extract the stem cells from my baby." Not likely.

So of course the other option was, does everyone in the galaxy have a baby through in-vitro fertilization?

Or, and this is the new one for today, since everyone has their stem cells on file, do women even get pregnant anymore? Or is the the galaxy populated by a bunch of test-tube babies?

Which, if this were the case, it would put a whole new outlook on their "status" in the world. I already have it that humans consider themselves to be the dominant intelligent species in the galaxy and have sort of "enslaved" the alien species (whom they refer to as Servants). But now, since the humans don't really like dealing with the Servants, not much is known about them. Nor are all their stem cells on file. Which means more Servants are made when the Servants have sex with each other, or however else their species reproduces.

But the thing I find most interesting about this, is that in today's world, or at least maybe more so the today of the last couple decades when cloning and in-vitro fertilization were newer, people made this way had the potential of being looked down upon and not considered "real" humans because they weren't made "naturally". And then in the galaxy, all humans are created in-vitroly (and I don't even know if women get pregnant and have birth anymore). I even think it works where the people who aren't produced in-vitroly would be considered less than human. Almost like in Gattacca, where the main character is looked down upon for being a "love child" and produced the old fashioned way without his parents going to genetic counciling first.

Of course, there's still a bit of time before I need to have these details fully worked out, like when I finally finish book 1 (Kitsune) and start book 2, when this detail about my main character *not* having her stem cells on file becomes a big deal.

In the meantime, I'll probably spend a couple more days not doing what I should be doing because the inaccuracy of my biology is bothering me.

Revisions and Natsuke's Backstory

The first 3 chapters of Kitsune went from 38 pages to 19 pages. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I knew a lot of stuff needed to be chopped, I just didn't realize I was chopping so much. My husband read through it last night and said he liked the relationship between Kitsu and Natsuke better than it was the first time around. So that's good. But still, when I think about the rest of the novel, and how I'm aiming for this draft to be 110,000 words, but if the rewrite of the whole novel goes the same way chapters 1 - 3 did, that means I'd be chopping the novel to being only 55,000 words.

I've been kind of afraid to read my husband's comments, but I hope they're encouraging. Though he was laughing at some parts, and other parts made him think of Futurama, and one of the deleted scene gags for Supernatural, season 1.

<2 days later.>

My husband left surprisingly few comments on my first 3 chapters, which frightens me more than makes me happy. He said he liked it, but wasn't sure if it was him being biased. Which means I need to find someone else to read it for me. So maybe I'll have to e-mail one of my friends in MN and see if he's not too busy with his own school work to give my writing a proper critique. Not that my husband's was necessarily bad, just that he spent more time enjoying the story and forgetting to critique than he spent critiquing.

I've also come to the realization that I need to write out a crap-load of Natsuke's backstory, or at least figure out the main details. Since Kitsune takes place in the same world as most of my stories, just really far in the future, I've always kind of glossed over the details of when the human world and the supernatural world completely split from each other. Originally, it was all tied into my Hunter series, so I didn't really want to deal with it until I actually sat down to write the series plotline. However, since then, I've realized that this major historical even (for Kitsu's time) has to be separated from all my other modern day stories.

It doesn't help that yesterday while my husband were shopping while not exactly in the mood to shop (since we forgot the money at home), I realized that Natsuke's past-self, who's the major player in the Split, had apparently accumulated so much power that the gods thought he was a risk to their position and power. So naturally, this realization intrigues me, since I never knew his past self was that powerful. Or that one *human* (albeit he's a mage) could pose such a threat to the gods. And so they conspired against him.

I want to find out more. And I sort of need to, but I really need to finish Kitsune, or at least revising chapters 1 - 3 and writing/revising the plot outline and synopsis, before I delve into this. But I'm still pretty excited.

Kitsune . . . I'm Back

So I'm finally back to working on Kitsune. We parted ways around December and now we're back together. Hopefully, we'll finish it this time.

Kitsune

First Post

Well, I signed up for NaNo this year. I didn't win and am somewhat disappointed with myself, but I knew I wouldn't make the 50,000 words when I signed up. What, with the needing to drive twenty-five minutes to and from work, and completely unable to work on my novel at work.

On the plus side, the 36,514 words that I did write in November, plus the 38, 238 words I have written September and October gives my novel a grand total of 74,752 words. Something I'm quite pleased with.


Kitsune
74,752 / 100,000
(74.8%)