Starting a New Project is Hard!

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?

September 16, 2012September 13, 2012christiespeich 1 Comment

Friday Finds: 5 Romances — 2 Contemporary, 2 Supernatural, 1 Psychological (September 14, 2012)

FRIDAY FINDS is hosted by Should Be Reading and showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

PLEASE NOTE: Some weeks I add several books to my list. I’ll be limiting my Friday Finds posts to 5 books each week. Those that don’t make this week’s list will be on next week’s. So many books, so little time!

Loving Summer by Kailin Gow
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Why I Added It: Sounds like a fun summer read with lots of boys and romance.
GoodReads Summary:

After not having seen childhood family friends, Rachel and her brothers Nathaniel and Drew in three years, sixteen year old Summer Jones, who has always spent her summers with the Donovans at her Aunt Sookie’s Malibu beach house, discovers there is more to her long-time crush on one of the Donovan brothers this summer than meets the eye, especially when Astor Fairway, the handsome television star taking her aunt’s acting coaching sessions, notices her. This summer, the summer she is noticed, would be the summer no one could forget.

Perigee Moon by Tara A. Fuller
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Why I Added It: Secrets, romance, and something supernatural…what’s not to love?
GoodReads Summary:

After a horrific fire claims the life of her mother, seventeen year old Rowan Bliss finds herself in the miniscule town of Ipswich, Massachusetts. It’s here that she meets Alex, a deliciously mysterious boy who holds the key to unlocking her family’s dark secret.

As Rowan falls helplessly over the edge for Alex, the secrets that he insists on keeping refuse to be contained, and the truth that she uncovers challenges everything she has ever believed. Alex is a witch. And now he’s awakened something within her she never even knew existed. But out of all of this, the one thing Rowan won’t accept is the fact that Alex is destined to die. Now Rowan must unearth the buried power she harbors within to escape a deadly prophecy, defy the very laws of time, and prevent the hands of fate from taking yet another person she loves.

Every Day by David Levithan
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Why I Added It: I love the premise. A different person every day, and then … trouble in the form of love.

GoodReads Summary:

Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day. With his new novel, David Levithan has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.

Winter Longing by Tricia Mills
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Why I Added It: A boy-next-door and moving on after loss story.
GoodReads Summary:

When Winter’s boyfriend is killed in a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness, she’s robbed of the future she’d only just allowed herself to believe might be hers. Winter and Spencer had been destined for one another. And after his death, Spencer’s presence continues to haunt her.

But when her next-door neighbor becomes an unlikely friend, Winter begins to accept all that she can’t change. Can she open herself to a new future . . . and a possible new love?

Unravel Me by Kendall Ryan
Links: Goodreads
Why I Added It: I’m not usually one for psychological novels, but this one intrigues me.

GoodReads Summary:

Psychology student Ashlyn Drake’s neat, orderly life takes a turn for the crazy when she finds the perfect subject for her amnesia thesis – a young man without any memory of his previous life, including the murder he’s accused of committing.

Against all common sense, Ashlyn’s drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it’s that he’s so incredibly male, and even handcuffed to his hospital bed he could pass for a cologne ad – Scent de Insanity. Or perhaps it’s because she’s spent too many lonely nights studying. Either way, she’s determined to help him solve the mystery of his past. She begins to unravel who he was before, using his cryptic tattoos, and his paintings that scream of a dark past as her only clues. When she finally learns his secret there’s no telling which one is the real him, the gentle lover she’s fallen for or the troubled man with a dark past.

Book summaries from Goodreads. Amazon links are affiliate links.

September 14, 2012September 21, 2012christiespeich 2 Comments

Diversity and Segregation on Bookshelves

Acceptance ……………………. Diversity ………………….. Segregation.
Photos by photogrammy1, on flickr

My husband and I had a conversation about diversity and racism the other day. Our son (8 years old) is one of just a few white kids in his circle of friends, but he doesn’t even notice.

He doesn’t care whether his friends are black, white, indian, or anything else. They’re just … *gasp*… people. I love that our school and community has helped to teach him this, but it’s also lulled me into believing this is true everywhere. I mean, it’s 2012, aren’t we past racism and segregation by now?

Apparently not. Author Coe Booth writes about her experience in her article Separate, Not Equal at CBC Diversity:

I really thought the photo of a teenage boy looking out onto his neighborhood would attract the attention of the audience I had in mind when I was writing the book — teenagers, especially boys, who don’t usually find a book that speaks to them. And I’ve since heard from lots of teens who tell me that it was the cover that initially drew them to the book.

The thing I never imagined was that the cover (and the covers of my subsequent books) might create an automatic ghettoization of my work.

Race and Sexuality — Not So Different

Usually when I’m thinking about issues like diversity, acceptance, and equality it’s in the context of sexuality because that’s a common component of most of the stories I want to tell. I hadn’t considered before now that my books, when published, could be shelved under LGBT or Gay/Lesbian fiction.

I really, really hope that doesn’t become the case. The stories I want to tell aren’t because my characters are gay or deal with issues that only someone who is gay would be interested in. They’re stories about teenagers on their paths to becoming adults who just happen to be gay. Just like a character just happens to have brown hair. Or is tall. Or short. My character being gay is part of the story, but it’s not the story.

But most importantly, by separating books into these specialized genres, we’re sending the message that they wouldn’t appeal to the “average” young adult reader. That only “certain readers” would be interested. Well, of course only “certain readers” would be interested — no one person likes all books — but whether the reader is gay or black is not that deciding factor.

Shelving books with characters who are not white or not straight under general young adult fiction would be one small but important step towards normalizing what society considers “different.”

I’m proud of my son for knowing that people are people, regardless of race. As he grows older and sexuality becomes something he’s more aware of, I have confidence it will matter just as much to him, which is to say: not at all because people are people.

Amazon links are affiliate links.

September 12, 2012September 21, 2012christiespeich 2 Comments

Teaser Tuesday: Hourglass by Myra McEntire (September 11, 2012)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“All I’m saying is … please don’t be so hard on yourself.” He reached as if he were going to touch my hand but pulled back.

~ 15% on Kindle, Hourglass by Myra McEntire

Here’s the summary from Goodreads:

One hour to rewrite the past . . .

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may also change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?