Sunday, September 2, 2012

GUTGAA Meet and Greet

Hello! I'm excited to be part of Deana's GUTGAA Blogfest for the second year. I'm excited to meet everyone and I look forward to having fun. So here are my answers to the meet and greet questions: 
 
-Where do you write? Primarily on my couch in the living room with my feet up on the coffee table. Sometimes the television is on, but I have been known to find the strength to take it off.

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see? My pretty living room curtains.

-Favorite time to write? When I first started writing books I only wrote at night because I felt it best suited the mood of my books (oh angsty, teenage me), which were dark and full of vampires and whatnot. Nowadays I can write at any time of day. As soon as I wake up, I can sit down and write all day. I also tend to write into the wee hours of the morning, which messes up my sleeping pattern, but the story has to be written right?

-Drink of choice while writing? Nothing really exciting here, I have a bottle of water with me all the time.

-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence? I don't usually listen to music, but I don't need complete silence either. I actually don't like complete silence in general, so if I haven't turned the T.V. off I'm usually writing to whatever it's showing.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it? For my latest MS, Affairs of the Dead, I remember having a random thought about "helping the dead"; I thought about ghosts sticking around because they had unfinished business, and the main character being one of those whose job it was to help them. It wasn't until someone mentioned it that I realized the idea was similar to the T.V. show Ghost Whisperer, but what Affairs grew into made me feel secure about it standing apart since it encompasses a lot of other unique elements.

-What's your most valuable writing tip? Make sure your story has a solid structure. It's one thing to have a fabulous idea, but it won't work well if you don't have a strong plot to center it around. For example, if your MC is a cursed vampire who will die if she drinks blood, that's great, but what is the story that revolves around the cursed MC? I think if you can pinpoint the beginning, middle, and end of your novel, you'll be in a good place. After I finish a book I always like to sit back and see if I can identify the climax of my novel because it's usually the pivotal point where something major happens that drives the story to it's conclusion.


(Other than blogging here, I can be found on Twitter, and on my other blog Requiem Words)

53 comments:

  1. I fell in love with a snippet of your book during the Hookers and Hangers blogfest - it's genius!

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  2. Hi AJ, looking forward to reading your query in the pitch contest, best of luck.
    You can find me over on When I Grow Up I Wanna Write A Kids Book blog.
    Cheers Julie

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  3. Hi, nice to meet you! Excellent writing tip! Hope to see you around GUTGAA. :)

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  4. Solid structure, gotcha. And I agree. That's really important. But more in the rewriting stage. I like to just let my imagination do whatever the hell it wants in the initial writing process. Nice to meetcha.

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  5. I agree on solid structure. It's all good and well to have great characters, but it means nothing when the writer gives them nothing to do. :-D

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  6. Dear A.J.,

    Nice to meet you. I enjoyed reading your answers for the meet and greet. Happy writing!

    Warm regards, Don #138

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  7. Great writing advice! I definitely agree.

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  8. I agree about having some kind of structure for a book. A lot of my earliest drafts of my first books suffered from that problem, perhaps influenced by all the older books I read with a more episodic, not plot-based, structure.

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  9. I think your MS sounds very interesting! Nice to meet you through GUTGAA

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  10. Great advice!
    I always have a water bottle with me too. I'm an avid water drinker. Good luck with GUTGAA!! :D

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  11. Love your advice! And I love a good ghost story. Good luck with GUTGAA.

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  12. Nice to meet you! Great advice. Good luck with GUTGAA! :)

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  13. Hang on! You get to write all day long???? I am sooo jealous.

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  14. Having your feet up when writing is the best. Just saying.
    ~Aidyl

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  15. I'm with Jessie! Writing all day is fantastic. When I travel and get stuck in airports I get to do that.

    Your story sounds so cool!

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  16. Hi from another GUTGAA participant.

    Oh, yes. Story structure. I once managed to write 100,000 words only to realize that it didn't really come to a story. Central conflict, central conflict, central conflict has become my mantra.

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  17. i love your writing advice! So what if your MC is special? There needs to be a plot to move along the story. I'm dropping in from GUTGAA.

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  18. Structure is very important, I agree. Nothing is worse than flailing aimlessly through a book (as a reader). It's nice to meet you!

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  19. If I'm not listening to music, I also have TV for background=)

    It's nice to meet you! I look forward to seeing you around #GUTGAA=)

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  20. Hi AJ! Great to meet you. I'm also a feet-on-the-coffee-table writer (in fact they are on the coffee table right now!) Your story sounds really interesting - looking forward to hearing more about it in the coming weeks.

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  21. Hi from GUTGAA! Excellent advice! Sometimes I get so caught up in the details, I forget where the story was supposed to be going. I think I need to use post its or become more of a plotter. Great to meet you!
    A2Z Mommy and What’s In Between

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  22. Nice to meet you! I'm so impressed with everyone who can lean back and write in a fav. armchair or on the couch... I feel like my nose is always 2 inches from the screen as I'm either tapping out a frenzy or willing the words to appear on their own... :)

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  23. Your blog looks very nice. That advice is the best I've read from the fifteen or so GUTGAA posts I've perused so far. I think too many people these days center everything on character development and not a lot ends up happening, the middle scenes becoming unbearably slow.

    Can't wait to see you around!

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  24. Hi, I am a new follower from the blogfest. I am making my meet and greet rounds. I like your blog. It has a unique pattern and style. I also really liked your favorite writing tip. I can't write to music, but I do write with the television on low in the background. I hate the creep sound of nothing. I look forward to getting to know you better during the blogfest.

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  25. Nice to meet you, A.J. New follower here and fellow GUTTAA. If you're coming back for seconds on this blogfest it must be as cool as it sounds. My daughter can write with the TV on. I can't have any visuals, just music.

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  26. I'm glad i'm not the only one who writes with a tv going in the background. For me, the slight distraction keeps me focused. It's nice to meet you!

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  27. I'm sorry for the similarity between your plot and Ghost Whisperer. It happened to me with Beauty&The Beast (Vincent) years ago. I had the idea, but there was someone else with means, and he grabbed the opportunity. But I also believe this kind of coincidences force the writer to think in a more unique way, pushing the limits of imagination, which also happened to me, and in the end something much more interesting came up. Following you, A.J. Keep writing.

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  28. I agree about having a solid structure. Some of my early books I just sat down and started throwing stuff down on paper. It took a long time and a lot of work at rewrites to shape it to something.

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  29. Love the nod to the nighttime capturing the teen darkness of your work. :) Good luck!

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  30. Your advice is so great! And I couldn't be happier that joined for year two! Oh, and you people whi can write with noise AMAZE me. Maybe I'm ADD or something:)

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  31. Hi, A.J. I'm impressed that you can write with the TV. I try and struggle. Nice to meet you and I look forward to seeing you around during the GUTGAA events. :-)

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  32. I hate TVs especially when they're running all day, and I could never write with one running in the background. I don't mind loud noises at all (I've got 3 kids after all), it's just that someone else's story keeps interfering with my own. ;-9

    I'm from GUTGAA too, and I'm mostly writing MG and YA. In Germany, I'm already agented.

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  33. Hi!
    I’m hopping over from GUTGAA and reading all the meet & greet questions. I love to meet other authors. Nice to meet you! Good luck with the contest...

    Anabel Gonzalez
    www.dreamsaboutwriting.blogspot.com

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  34. Nice to meet you! I can't write in front of the T.V. That's impressive! :)

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  35. Hi! Nice to meet you :)
    Nice advice. And for what it's worth, I'm a big Ghost Whisperer fan.. I might have cried when it was cancelled. So it's safe to say I'll like your story. Can't wait to read how it's different from Melinda's story.
    Come and say hi at my M&G post. Go #GUTGAA!

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  36. Hi AJ! Nice to meet you. :) I agree, having well-plotted structure makes the story sing. Cheers.

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  37. Hi AJ, great advice about structure! I'm a huge fan of the three act structure. Good luck with GUTGAA

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  38. So nice to meet you on GUTGAA. I remember your pitch from Mother.Write.Repeat. and really like your concept. Cheers, Kristina

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  39. So many healthy water drinkers! I need to do better with that. ^_^ Best wishes with GUTGAA!

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  40. Hi!! Thats an awesome writing tip that I apply with every manuscript!

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  41. Hi AJ! I really like your ms idea. I love a good ghost story!

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  42. Thanks for the writing tip, I found myself making sure I can determine the beginning, middle and end in my own MS. And I agree about always having a bottle of water around, especially on those humid summer days!! Nice to meet you and happy writing. :)

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  43. Hi! Great blog. Sometimes there really is nothing more pleasing than some pretty curtains! :)

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  44. I like your writing tip. Stories really do need structure. :)

    http://otherworlddiner.blogspot.com/2012/09/deana-barnharts-gearing-up-to-get-agent.html

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  45. Hi, A.J.--
    Good to "meet" you. I love the look of your website, very classy.

    I have tried to write on my couch (or sitting up in bed), but it doesn't work for me. I guess I need the structure of a good office chair, but I guess getting the words out of our heads is the only important thing anyway.

    Michael

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  46. Nice to meet you! Your blog looks great. New follower. :)

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  47. Cool inspiration! Sounds fun. Enjoy GUTGAA.

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  48. Hi! Nice to "meet" you. :) I loved your answer on writing tips. The story about the cursed vampire actually sounds cool. Is that something you've written? I'm kind of over vampire novels, but the idea of a cursed one is really neat.

    Did you read The Immortals by Julie Kagawa? That was one of the best vampire books I've read. Very cool.

    I'm doing GUTGAA too, first year. And I JUST started a blog, like one day ago, so I have a whole five followers. If you could stop by, I'd appreciate it! It's: www.onemagicbeanbuyer.blogspot.com

    Thanks!

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  49. great writing tip. structure is important.

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  50. Stopping by to say hi. Love your writing advice. Good luck with GUTGAA!

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  51. Hi AJ!

    Great writing tips and it was lovely reading about you!

    All the best!

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  52. I'm late. I'm late. for a terribly important date...

    Well, the GUTGAA list is huge, so it's going to take awhile to get around and say hi to everyone!

    You book sounds amazing!
    Talynn

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  53. Happy GUTGAA! Loved reading your meet and greet!

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