nano

Six Sentence Sunday: Dinner With the Family (December 2, 2012)

I can’t believe NaNo is over already! This is my final Six Sentence Sunday for my NaNo Story, Shots on Goal.  (At least until revisions, maybe?)

This is another scene from Brett’s point-of-view. Every Sunday, he and his sister Sharon are expected to attend dinner with their parents.  Brett is also tasked with various  manual labor jobs around the house.

“Pop, it’s not like when you played. We train full time in the off-season, too.”

“When I was your age –” he stabbed the air between them with his fork “– I was still pulling my full weight at the farm during the off-season. Least you can do is help around the house once a week.”

Sharon sent Brett a sympathetic glance, but it only lasted a second before she had to remind one of her children that Sunday Dinner demanded “our very best manners, always.”  Brett felt somewhat better knowing that the impossible standards were shoved upon both of them, even if they were old-fashioned and sexist.

The tentative summary that will be re-written after revisions:

Brett has just weeks left on his contract with his minor league team to prove he deserves a spot in the NHL when a wrong move aggravates an old injury. When he learns the figure skater he’s admired from afar is also a skilled massage therapist, he sees a chance to save his dream.

Jeremy loves dancing on the ice, but his dream to be a professional figure skater died before it began.  To keep his massage therapy business alive, he’ll need to take on more clients, which leaves less time for preparing for the upcoming skating competition.  So when Brett offers to pay Jeremy double for his treatment, saying no is difficult even though Jeremy usually refuses to treat male athletes. Especially huge hockey players who sneer at gay figure skaters.

As Jeremy’s hands work their magic over Brett’s muscles, Brett must break through Jeremy’s walls and convince him  he’s not the homophobic jerk he appears to be…while also hiding his injury from his coach and his sexuality from everyone but Jeremy.

Hope you enjoyed the little snippet. Be sure to check out the other Six-Sentence Sunday participants!

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Six Sentence Sunday: NaNo Week 3 (November 25, 2012)

Being out of town for two weekends in a row makes for low activity on the blog. I’m way behind on my NaNoWriMo story, but I’m continuing to plug away. And so, I have six more sentences to share for Six Sentence Sunday.

The last two weeks have been scenes from Jeremy’s point of view. Although Brett and Jeremy are both heroes of the story, I consider Brett to be the “more” main character. Here’s six sentences from his point of view:

(And remember, it’s NaNo — that means it’s fast-drafted and unedited!)

Jeremy’s hands on his back have always felt good, but Brett could swear they felt extra good today. Not only did the pressure on his aching muscles help to work out the tension, but every touch sent chills down Brett’s spine. More than once he shivered under Jeremy’s fingers.

“Everything okay?” Jeremy asked.

Brett moaned in response. He loved that he could tell Jeremy was smiling just by the way he said it.

 

The working title is Shots On Goal  and the tentative summary is

Brett has just weeks left on his contract with his minor league team to prove he deserves a spot in the NHL when a wrong move aggravates an old injury. When he learns the figure skater he’s admired from afar is also a skilled massage therapist, he sees a chance to save his dream.

Jeremy loves dancing on the ice, but his dream to be a professional figure skater died before it began.  To keep his massage therapy business alive, he’ll need to take on more clients, which leaves less time for preparing for the upcoming skating competition.  So when Brett offers to pay Jeremy double for his treatment, saying no is difficult even though Jeremy usually refuses to treat male athletes. Especially huge hockey players who sneer at gay figure skaters.

As Jeremy’s hands work their magic over Brett’s muscles, Brett must break through Jeremy’s walls and convince him  he’s not the homophobic jerk he appears to be…while also hiding his injury from his coach and his sexuality from everyone but Jeremy.

Hope you enjoyed the little snippet. Be sure to check out the other Six-Sentence Sunday participants!

christiespeich 1 Comment

Six Sentence Sunday: NaNo Week 2 (November 18, 2012)

During November, I’m participating in Six-Sentence Sunday and sharing some of my NaNo story.  I had been planning to write a young adult novel involving a robotics competition.  Then 12:01 AM November 1st, after the magic of Halloween had come to an end, I suddenly decided I didn’t want to work on that story after all.

Instead, I decided to pick up on an old short story I had wanted to write a couple years ago and expand it into a short novel.  It’s an adult romance, not young adult.

(And remember, it’s NaNo — that means it’s fast-drafted and unedited!)

He had Brett now, and Brett was three hundred times better than Seth. A better kisser. A better talker. Brett could even skate, dammit!

Not a better dancer, though, Jeremy thought as Brett leaned against him, making him stop his movements. Or wait … was Jeremy leaning against him?

(Jeremy is a little bit drunk. Heehee.)

The working title is Shots On Goal  and the tenative summary is

Brett has just weeks left on his contract with his minor league team to prove he deserves a spot in the NHL when a wrong move aggravates an old injury. When he learns the figure skater he’s admired from afar is also a skilled massage therapist, he sees a chance to save his dream.

Jeremy loves dancing on the ice, but his dream to be a professional figure skater died before it began.  To keep his massage therapy business alive, he’ll need to take on more clients, which leaves less time for preparing for the upcoming skating competition.  So when Brett offers to pay Jeremy double for his treatment, saying no is difficult even though Jeremy usually refuses to treat male athletes. Especially huge hockey players who sneer at gay figure skaters.

As Jeremy’s hands work their magic over Brett’s muscles, Brett must break through Jeremy’s walls and convince him  he’s not the homophobic jerk he appears to be…while also hiding his injury from his coach and his sexuality from everyone but Jeremy.

Hope you enjoyed the little snippet. Be sure to check out the other Six-Sentence Sunday participants!

christiespeich 2 Comments

Starting a New Project is Hard!

I cannot move on from a fictional character.

Characters have a way of grabbing hold of us, don’t they?

In May, I finished the first draft of my WIP, Brotherly Love, after taking a FastDraft workshop with Candace Havens. And “first draft” is definitely the appropriate term for it:  There’s extraneous scenes, missing scenes, some less-than-stellar writing, and at least three attempts at an ending.

In short, it needs a lot of work. But since then, I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels. I haven’t done much revising yet, mostly just brainstorming. This path or that path? Why does this character have zero flaws? Should that character be a doctor or a minister?

Ahhhh, the questions are never-ending.

NaNo is Coming …

I’m super excited about doing NaNo this year.

Actually, no.

I’m super excited about the idea of doing NaNo this year.

I’m not really sure what I’ll write for NaNo. But I’ve got all of October to figure that out, right?

Before NaNo Comes FastDraft

Yup, I was just insane enough to sign up for another FastDraft workshop right before NaNo.  It starts tomorrow and last week was supposed to be dedicated to preparing for that.

I struggled all week to figure what what I’ll write over the next two weeks.  I struggled to develop new characters and relationships and conflicts.

Why has this been so hard? Usually developing characters is what I’m good at and they come fairly easily to me. But not this time.

The Voices Characters in My Head

A big part of the problem is that I can’t get the two main characters of Brotherly Love out of my head.   I’m always thinking about how I can tweak the plot to raise the stakes, put them into conflict, and tell the story I want to tell.

My book is almost finished, but I'm just not ready to say goodbye to these characters. Maybe if I just read the last chapter really slow...

We’ve all felt this way at one point, right?

They’re my friends. I love them. To start another project feels like abandoning them.

Does that sound crazy? Other writers can probably understand these feelings,  but writers are pretty weird to begin with, huh?

Judging by the number of memes about fictional characters and the way we hold on to them makes me think that readers get it, too.

Either that, or they’re just as crazy as us writers. 😀

Not Abandonment, Just a Break

I have to keep telling myself that I’m not abandoning my boys.  I’m not giving up on them. But I do worry that by the end of November, I’ll be so focused on the new manuscripts that Brotherly Love will fall to the wayside.

I even worry I’ll  forget about my boys.

Then I remember a story I started writing back in 2009 but never finished. I still think about that story. Not every day anymore, but often enough. I even still dream about those characters sometimes. The only reason I haven’t gone back to work on that story is that it’s fan fiction and my focus right now is on writing stories that I can publish.

So no, I won’t forget about my Brotherly Love boys in just a couple months. And yet I worry so much about it, I’m having trouble moving on even though I know I need to take a break.

I just have to keep telling myself that it’s okay.  Everything will be alright.  

Right?

 

 

 

christiespeich 1 Comment