My Writing Week (and Contest info)

This has been an interesting week for me in terms of books and writing. First up, when it came to my WIP, I hit a wall and it almost had me tearing my hair out. My word count so far is just about 70k, which means I'm in the home stretch, but it wasn't until around 65k that I had a panic attack over the story. It was one of those moments when after plowing through the book and thinking everything was going well it suddenly hits me that there were gaping holes that need to be filled. I realized that there were several HUGE issues with my main story line and for the life of me I could not figure out how to fix them...thus the almost hair pulling. It took a few days before I was able to figure things out, which included a lot of back tracking and adding things, changing things, and deleting things, but now I am tentatively moving forward and on my way to finishing the book. Of course it's a total mess full of inconsistencies and places where further things need to be changed, but that's all part of the fun I get to take care of once the book is done and editing begins.

I also had my logline critiqued over at Miss Snark's First Victim and the critiques were very helpful. I find loglines are not fun to write at all because it's not always easy to figure out what to include and what to leave out but I think mine is one its way to a better place. I'm planning to enter her Baker's Dozen Agent auction this year, so my logline has to be the best it can be. If you don't know about the agent auction you can get info on it on her blog.

I also attended a book signing event for Maureen Johnson's new release "The Name of the Star" this week. She's very nice and very witty and it was a pretty cool event, got my book signed and there were cupcakes which is always a plus. Here are a couple pics:
















Maureen Johnson












A couple people dressed as Jack the Ripper (who plays an important role in the book)

And finally, there are a few cool contests going around that I thought I'd spread the word about. First of all, author Lisa L. Regan will be hosting a "Hook for Your Book" contest to be judged by her agent Jeanie Pantelakis. There will be three different events, for Fantasy, Romance, and Historical fiction, starting with Fantasy on October 10th, so check it out if you're interested: Hook for your Book contest info.

Jess from Falling Leaflets also posted about a few contests so be sure to check her blog out as well for more info.

And lastly, I am showcasing the custom banner that was made for me by Kristal over at Operation Awesome as part of a prize pack I won a couple weeks ago:

Second Campaigner Challenge - Endless Imago

Our second campaigner challenge from Rach Writes is to write a blog post in any format (flash fiction, poem, etc,) using the word "Imago" in the title and incorporating the words lacuna, miasma, oscitate and synchronicity in the piece. An added challenge is to make it 200 words exactly and make reference to a mirror. I decided to go with a poem; the meaning of the words inspired me to write something poetic and with darker emotions. (My entry is number 31)

Endless Imago

In this never ending story there's a mocking lacuna,
one that's too wide to ever build a bridge across.
And here we stand on opposite ends,
pouring our souls deeper into a miasma
that's already taken everything we never had.
And I've spent years wondering if this was ever real,
or just a dream from a time of innocence
that I never let go of when I was supposed to.
I oscitate at the things we will never know,
unwilling to just close this door and step away,
because I remember the synchronicity we shared
even though it was a lifetime ago.
It is the one thing that cannot be taken;
the only thing we have as the chasm gets deeper,
the distance grows wider,
and the weight of our own hearts drag us under.



Word definitions:

Imago: an idealized concept of a loved one, formed in childhood and retained unaltered in adult life.

Miasma : noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere. A dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere.

Lacuna : a gap or missing part.

Oscitate : to gape; to yawn.

Synchronicity: an apparently meaningful coincidence in time of two or more similar or identical events that are causally unrelated

Memory Lane - My First Novel

The summer of 2001 was when I started my first novel, which makes it officially ten years that I set myself on this path of novel writing. Truthfully, it wasn't a drive to be published that started me writing, it was fourteen year old angst and a need to escape it that led me to taking some computer paper and a pen to bed one night and using a book light to start writing. I don't even think I had an outline or much of an idea where I'd be going with it, I just started writing. The one thing that I did know the story would be about was, of course, vampires.

So that night my first novel was born, and I kept going at it on computer paper for a while. Then I stopped. I don't know why, maybe I was stuck at a part, but for a few weeks I didn't write. One day though, it kicked in again, but this time I bought notebooks and set about re-writing everything from the computer paper into the notebook, then I continued I story. About five to six months and 263 hand written pages later, I had my first novel, Shadow Realm.

Shadow Realm was about a human girl named Jesse who one night stumbles into the supernatural, sideways world where vampires, werewolves, and witches exist. She meets a hot vampire boy (of course) named Joshua, who has his own drama with his power hungry father Lucas, who is also the ruler of the Shadow Realm and is ruthlessly seeking three "Mystic Powers" (for evil intentions of course). Jesse discovers that she is one of the powers, so the book follows her and Joshua as they try to evade his father, teach her how to control her power, and of course, fall in love. In the end, they find the other two powers and are able to stop Lucas, but Jesse dies. I didn't particularity want to kill Jesse, but I thought it would be fun to have a sad ending for poor Joshua.

For fun I thought I would share the opening and ending of Shadow Realm, not because they are fantastic pieces of writing (which they are not), but because it is where my novel writing began, and without having written those words I wouldn't be where I am now. I haven't yet achieved my publication dreams but I'm still going at it despite all the frustration and disappointment that comes with being a writer. So here it is, and I will only preface it by saying that it was EXTREMELY hard not to edit it, but I forced myself not to change a word.

Opening:

The night was midnight black. A haunting moon hung high in the sky, sailing amongst thick clouds. It was a hot summer evening in June, a typical night just like any other. Typical that is, until the clock strikes twelve. That mysterious, old clock tower, half hidden in ruins, yet it never failed to strike the midnight hour with a strike that sent shivers to your very soul. It seemed to work magic, for it was then that the creatures of the night came out in all their glory, for they ruled the night and reveled in its velvet, dark mysteriousness. Bats, owls, and all sorts of other nocturnal creatures came out. Not to mention the real creatures of the night, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters…and vampires.

Ending:

He’d thought maybe he wouldn’t end up lonely after all. But that was when he still had Jesse. She was the brightness, the light that had chased away the darkness he was living in. Now he just stared at her, feeling as if everything in the world was lost to him, never again would she look at him with her emerald eyes, smile at him and light up his whole heart. He’d never get a chance to brush away her tears or kiss her gentle lips.

“My kiss will bring you back to me….” Just a lie, just a fairy tale. Prince Charming’s kiss only worked in a world of fairy tales, a world spun by the imagination.

In reality, Sleeping Beauty never wakes up.