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Why so silent?

"You've been awfully quiet lately, Bethany," you may be saying. "Usually you at least pop in to talk about how much you're sucking these days once in awhile." Well, fear not. I haven't been in because I have been writing, and I don't want to curse it. So let's continue this streak of not-cursing and drop the subject entirely, shall we?

On another note, this blog may be moving its home for the first time in many years. It's gotten to a point where having a purely writing-related blog is unnecessary, whereas a blog chronicling all my creative pursuits ('cause even when I'm not writing, I'm reading, or doing bad art, or making bad short films, and so on) would be prudent. So look forward to maybe having new skin real soon! :)

Like they said on Buffy, "Where do we go from here?"

So I haven't written in about a week. Big shock (shyeah), big deal.

Frankly, I'm burned out on the stories I'm writing, and it looks it may be permanent (which for me really just means "another year or two until I think of an interesting creative way to revive it, at which point I'll successfully burn out on it again, o! the fun"). I haven't had fresh material in awhile. All my stories have been derivative of the one story I've been writing since I was twelve in some fashion.

Last night, I met a new character. I don't know what her name is. What I know about her is that she's much shorter than me, has kickboxer thighs, light brown hair, and a couple squishy places on her body. She's also been staring at me with a disapproving look on her face -- mostly centered around her muddy eyes, thick lips, and in the set of her square jaw -- and I think she has a lot of sex. And no faith in humankind. She's had this mini-rant going in my head for the last day or so: "The whole world is about senseless fucking. Inconsiderate drivers fuck each other. Corporations fuck each other. Nations fuck each other for money and land and prestige. And you can call me a slut for fucking a dozen different guys, but it's still a lesser crime than those most of the other fuckers out there commit."

She has a foul mouth and nice legs and sounds like the making of a satire. I like her. Hopefully we'll be getting to learn more about her soon. :)

Where have you gone again, my sweet?

Welp, so much for NaNo. I tried to return to my book again today, and even with the additions and a few notes, I just couldn't see it going anywhere. The story is a blank to me. I don't know what to do with it, and I have no interest in it, and so That's That. This is no surprise to me whatsoever. I was feeling pretty good about the book at first, but it was really a spur-of-the-moment idea, and completely unsurprising to me that I couldn't make it work.

What's really frustrating about this is that I really want to write. I still get madly jealous when I read stuff by newly-published authors (yanno, like, "how dare you get published, bitches!"), and someone in my writer's group is doing really well on the path to publication which makes me happy and proud in addition to madly jealous. And I want to write so badly.

I'm looking at my young adult fantasy again, but it's also dull and uninteresting to me. I think I need to get away from urban fantasy, dark fantasy, and fantasy-fantasy altogether. I feel like I need something fresh and really different just to clear my palate and reset my brain. Maybe sci-fi. Hell, maybe romance. I don't know. It's a wall to me. I haven't seriously written in a year now, and it's more frustrating than anything else.

I don't know. We'll see.

Ninety-nine point nine Farhenheit degrees

([-]========)

6,309 / 50,000

(12.6%)

Well, it's not much progress, but it is progress, and that's good. I'm feeling pretty crappy today ('tis the season to spread disease, fa la la la la and all that) so I'm not going into huge detail about what's going on with my book, but I will say that you gotta love one thing about fevers: they're sure good when it comes to writing. Last night, while tossing and turning in my delerium, I think I figured out what I can do at the beginning to add context to all the action in the book. I can't say the writing's great, but first drafts never are. So long as I write, right?

Three months and I'm still sober

Welp, that wasn't pretty. Yesterday I had a great big spluttery Writingsplosion-- and not the good kind. In part because I couldn't figure out the plot, and in part because I think I'm PMSing. (Oh, hormones.) I got frustrated to the point where the mere thought of writing was filling me with anger and hate and kick-my-boyfriend-in-the-shin-and-hide-in-the-corner-to-pout (don't ask), and as such I got very little done yesterday.

I resisted the urge to trash what I'd written and go back to my young adult novel from scratch, and I think I might have an idea of what to do with my NaNo book. Now I just have to tear myself away from SimTower (unlikely to happen anytime soon) and tentatively try a little writing. But the outlook isn't great.

Stupid book

([-]========)
5,253 / 50,000
(10.5%)

Yesterday, writing was easy.

Today? Not so much.

To be fair to myself, writing time has been a little tricky to get. After work last night, a long talk with one of my neighbors who needed help (which I unfortunately was unable to give) shook me out of my introverted writing state, and I couldn't get back into it in time for sleep; this morning, anytime I start to get absorbed in a scene I have work to do. (Being that I'm at work and all.)

But it also doesn't help that I'm really, really not feeling the beginning of the plot. Usually my books' scenes lay out like this: action sequence, "real life" introductory character sequence, exploration of problem arisen from the initial action sequence. But this one's going more like this: character arrival, suspicious and mysterious something-going-wrongness, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO PUT IN HERE, character meets another character, AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE THE HELL TO PUT IN HERE, action! action! action!. I'm confused. I feel like there's no sense of the character being offered to the reader. There's no context. And my writing is shitty, but that's okay in a rough draft.

*growlgrumpstompstompstomp*

Working, working, working

([]=========)
4,673 / 50,000
(9.3%)

It's weird to be writing again. And by "writing," I mean "writing and actually getting somewhere." I've been writing off and on a little for awhile, but I hardly ever get anywhere with it. Now I'm not only getting somewhere, but I've been writing all day off and on at work (in the meantime getting repeatedly interrupted by The Boyfriend and actual, yanno, "work") and I'm discovering the plot as I go along. Things are making sense. It's pretty neat.

But note to self: don't write Christmas carols in the background of scenes. You'll be singing them all freaking day.

Ready, set...

NANO!

Have you missed me? I've missed you. :)

It seems to Zokutou word meter, so popular a word counter for NaNoers everywhere, has been taken down just so people can't use it for NaNoWriMo. *shrug* Whatever. That's what ASCII Awesomeness is for. ;) So here's my makeshift word count meter-- and yes, that's an accurate depiction of how far along I am. Woo hoo!

([]=========)

1,756 / 50,000
(3.5%)

I'm not writing what I expected to write for NaNoWriMo (my young adult fantasy), but I promise I'm writing, and I promise you'll like it when I'm done, and that's what counts.

I've noticed a shift in personality back to that which I had a couple years ago-- the dedication and obsession necessary to Get Things Done, which I've been lacking for a whole year now. (I finished Witch October 2006. I haven't really written since.) I first noticed that I've gotten a little more like I Used To Be when I started semi-successfully dieting again, with increasing success, and it's the same determination it takes to diet that it takes to write a book. It's something you have to really want in order to get anywhere. I can't say I'm at the point where I really want it again yet, but I do just want it, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Pop in for regular blogging again throughout the month!

All night, all night, all every night

So here I am, up at three in the morning before a full day at work doing some writing on my working synopsis for my NaNo book. What in the world am I thinking? I got up to use the john, not to go on a sleep-deprived writing binge. I should really go back to bed.

We are just like Romeo-- AND Juliet!

It's just over a month until NaNoWriMo, omgponies. I anticipate participating this year, but no promises. I want to do my young adult urban dark fantasy novel (which is altogether too long a name for a genre), and I've been plotting it. BUT I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. *huff*

Which just leaves me with... hi. I'm alive. And even writing a weensy teensy rare amount. Just in case you were wondering.

A moment of silence

A moment of silence, please, for the late great Robert Jordan.

I've been reading his books since elementary school. His passing is a tragedy that is felt... well, everywhere.

Gonna get dirrtay

Hey look, a distraction.

I love being infectious. I'm like a friggen disease. The Boyfriend is taking all art classes this semester at the same university Elise attend(ed)(s), and he announced after the first day that he hated them all. (Which, as contributor of funds toward his education, was mildly annoying.) Then, after the second day, he said to me, "I hate sculpting and printmaking and all those classes. The only thing I did today that I found inspiring was working on my story. The only thing I got revved up about was my story. The only thing that I really enjoyed today was working on my story. I want to write."

Mwahahahaha. Another convert. He has no idea the hell into which he has entered. >:)

Writing is such a deceptive mistress. One day she comes smoothly from your mind and your fingers and life is beautiful. Then the bitch cheats on you and leaves you for months/years at a time and even though you still want to write, you can't, and you just want to die. Creatively speaking. Not like I have any experience with that or anything.

At least it's a little better these days. :)

Unsung champion of reason

I've written 1200 words on a new/old project today. I won't say anything else just yet.

I couldn't comprehend as I watched it unfold

Collaborating is fun. Collaborating with someone who is a writing innocent (you know, with no idea of what would sell on the market, what makes an idea cheesy versus cool, what kind of plots are overdone and what you can add to make them more unique) is even more fun. This is because you can have absurd plot discussions that go so off the wall they somehow manage to venture back into sanity. It's also fun seeing someone who hasn't been jaded by writing in any way shape or form, so everything involved in the process is New and Exciting.

I was bouncing around plot ideas with The Boyfriend yesterday (who almost loves trains as much as he loevs me me, which you need to know to fully understand the following conversation), who is my collaborative writing innocent at the moment. We've done this a few times, and we tend to churn out ideas that are absolutely neat or so stupid it's beautiful. Our plot-building process yesterday pretty much went like this.

Him: Let's write sci-fi.
Me: Okay.
Him: With a train.
Me: How about a story with a hovertrain?
Him: YAY.
Me: Like... Murder on the Orient Express on a hovertrain.
Him: OMG YAY-er. That would be so cool.
Me: And it should be in a dystopian future... like Gears of War.
Him: Post-apocalyptic America would be cool. And there can be radiation zombies!
Me: Ooh, zombies! But I think bio-terrorism would strike better with modern readers.
Him: Disease zombies!
Me: Sweet! And it can follow... an ex-soldier. Who's jaded. And cool. Like... ooh.
Him: And he's guarding the president on the hovertrain?
Me: The president? WTF? How did the president get on the hovertrain with the zombies?
Him: There might still be a president. Or it could be important supplies for a colony!
Me: Too Firefly. What about refugees?
Him: Yeah! And all of the US has been exploded and everyone's dead!
Me: So the refugees have to get from, like, Maine... to safety in California!
Him: And the story could be called... "Last Express to Salvation."
Me: Ooh.
Him: Ooh.

There was a lot more to it than that, but I think you get the idea. ;)

Meanwhile, I miss Elise and Daniel. *cuddles for my long-ignored characters*

It's just not the same

Still taking a merry break from writing. This doesn't mean I haven't been writing; it just means that I've been writing little pointless vignettes when I feel like it and avoiding all my Actual Projects. And I'm trying very hard to see The Good in taking this kind of break, but mostly I just feel unproductive. ;)

In the meantime, I'm considering starting an actual personal blog. You know, not from the perspective of Bethany, but from the person most know me as-- Danielle. (I like to think of the two aspects of my personality, between Real Me and my Living Penname, as very snuggly twin sisters.) Danielle does have a personal blog, but it's on MySpace, and it's a little too personal, and it's exclusive for close friends. So I guess what I'm saying is, I might start a public personal blog. If that makes any sense.

Which I'm sure it doesn't. But there you have it.

Turn yourself around

My writer's group online is full of tarot readers and women with a very keen kind of sixth sense, if that's what you'd like to call it. (I think a lot of writer's are very spiritual, although not necessarily in a religious sense.) One of the writers did a reading for me, and what came up was obviously all about my writing, and the writer's block from which I'm currently suffering.

Except what it said was that I shouldn't be suffering. It said that yeah, I'm not being very creative, but that's just because I'm not, yanno, creating. It said the obvious (as the cards always do): I burnt myself out before, and then I stopped, and I need to find the place in between. It also said I need to look at what's good about being a lot less absorbed in my writing, so I've been thinking about that.

What has this break done for me? Well, a lot, actually.

1. When I write, I tend to get so absorbed that I don't read. Without so much writing, I've been reading a lot. I've also been reading a lot of new material, and in a diverse range of genres and styles.
2. My grasp of the English language as a whole has improved. I've had time to clean up my style a little and I've Learned a Lot, so when I do write, I'm actually writing readable material.
3. I've had time to distance myself from my long-time works and come to some hard -- but important -- decisions.
4. Little to no time writing also has allowed me to work on my personal life, and I've nurtured a happy and healthy relationship in the time that I've been without my first love.

So... yeah. I guess there is a lot of good there. Still, I find it hard to see past the bad-- mainly that I'm not inspired to write very much anymore. But perhaps it'll come back with time and a little persistent work. I suppose it's only fair that, after writing being phenomenally easy for so long, I should have to actually work for it for once.

I am what I am

Three things.

One: Black Death is getting around to publishing the Blackest Death III anthology, which features my short story, "Something Wrong." There's not yet a definite ship date, other than "late 2007," but you can check out the page and preorder the book by going here. Despite my mild annoyance at having them go quiet for so long and appear as though they might not even publish it in the first place, I have to say I'm pretty excited I'll finally get to see one of my favorite stories in print.

Two: Torquere Press is accepting submissions until July 15th for 3000-7000 word stories featuring 1.) gay themes, and 2.) whips. This sounds like a short story topic right up my alley, so I'm going to write something for it. Whether or not they take it, at least it'll be fun.

Three: Five hundred posts! This is quite a benchmark for Bethany Speaks! I feel I owe my few readers a present of some kind, so I may make a post soon with a short story or other Snippets of Writing.

Something's coming, something good

I've been thinking about the Ascension series a lot lately. The mental incubation period on it is going to be very long indeed, because I have to be careful on how I approach it-- I, like anyone who's read the many incarnations in the past, is tired with all the revamps and rewrites and lingering stories that never get finished. In order to tell all the stories I feel have to be told about this universe in three books, I'm going to have to be super ready before I even think of laying pen to paper. I think I'm even going to have to break my "no more outlines" rule in order to make sure I follow everything through to the best of my abilities.

I know I want it darker from page one. I know I want it to appeal to the age range that most urban dark fantasy books appeal to. But more importantly, I know I want to break the rules of urban dark fantasy past-- I don't want it to be like Anita Blake or any of her offshoots or ripoffs. I want to emphasize the "fantasy" part, and make each book count a lot more and have a broader scope of the universe. That's going to be very tough.

But I don't want to talk about it too much, because saying I'm going to do something Awesomecakes with it is an implied promise, and I don't want to make any promises I might not end up keeping. :) But I thought I should share what direction my thought processes are going in.

Technologic

Just as a bit of a note, I've worked a little on chapter three for Roadkill today, but I didn't get too far. It's funny. I only ever really feel inspired to work on that at work, so I can't really do much on it at home or back in my hometown.

Visiting my hometown, however, is always mighty inspiration for writing Ascension related things. And I am working on it, actually. I'm figuring out how I can actually make the entire series work in a trilogy, and I like the tightness of the plots, and how much stuff is getting cut out. Unfortunately, it looks like redundant (but AWESOME) characters like Alex are going to be removed, whereas characters such as Ann will be revamped and their roles adjusted slightly. Justin's going to get more page time, which I'm pretty psyched about, because I've always had a soft spot for him, but he gets kicked out of the series so early on. Not this time! :)

A lot of fun plots are also going to have to go. The Book of the Dead and the coolio zombies? Gone. The main plot of Daywalker? Pared down and merged with the plot of Witch. I'd still like to do Yatai, but I don't know how yet. Pretty much everything that I've already written will be turned into a single book; the stuff I'd planned for the future will be two. It's going to be a shocker to people already fans of the Ascension series, lemme tell ya. But the stories will still feel very familiar, and the trilogy will still have that comfy feeling of well-worn shoes, except a lot shorter. Which is a huge relief.

I want a different name for the trilogy. Something cool, like, The Rise and Fall of SomethingThatSoundsCool. I haven't thought too much about that yet. ;)

Make awkward sexual advances, not war

Boy, Real Life sure does distract from writing at times. I'm not posting to say that I've really been doing anything other than thinking; I'm just really posting to say: On vacation in RL. Thinking of you. Glad you're not here, my dearest reader(s). Never, ever leave your cushiony land of fantasy for what's real.

What's real may not be bad. In fact, it may be wonderful. (I say this as I rub my kitty's jaw, sitting around in a black overshirt that only pretends to cover my young and fortunately fairly well-formed body, as yet unruined by time and the horrible things time does to one's figure. Wonderful indeed.) But that doesn't mean that it's productive, or fantastic, or beautiful, and that is something I miss. Living with my brain in reality is pretty lame, I have to say.

Anyway, I am thinking of you, those who are home in the land of fantasy. I miss you. I swear I'll be back whenever I can.

Everything's gonna be all right, rockabye

I haven't started on the third chapter of Roadkill yet, because I haven't yet been struck by inspiration for it as I had been for the first two. This book is an experiment in writing in a manner that is completely boundless-- no time constraints, no length constraints, no constraints of any kind. I don't think it's efficient and I'm not sure it'll work, but it's new and kind of refreshing, since I usually write in intense, brief bursts during which I'm very closed and nobody reads anything I'm writing. It's built entirely off things within and no feedback, which makes for a work that's really more of a reflection of my mental health and subconscious thoughts than a real story. This, however, is totally open to readers and feedback as I go, and I write it at my leisure. Inefficient or not, it's nice.

Oh-so shockingly, I haven't touched Script Frenzy since the first day, and I don't expect I'll go back to it. I know. You're surprised.

I've been thinking a fair amount about the Ascension series, though, and what I want to do with it now that it's become clear my teenage fantasies no longer suit me as a person. I may shorten it to three books, which each have three parts, allowing me to quickly and concurrently covering all of the most important storylines. Ann and the Book of the Dead, for instance, could overlap with the Daywalker and Mr. Black (which makes sense chronologically), all in one book with short parts rather than several painfully long works. I also want to depart from the Anita Blake style writing, a wandering first-person narrative that just irritates me and isn't my strong suit in writing. I want to focus more on the fantasy in urban dark fantasy and explore the lives of the other characters as well, instead of focusing on the lone Mary Sue-like character that signifies most urban dark fantasy on the shelves right now.

But mostly I'm just chilling and working on Roadkill, 'cause I'm not ready to return to the Ascension series. I hope to fully outline this new Ascension endeavor before starting on it, because I've spent many, many years in this universe, and it's about time I wrap things up for the characters and stop dragging out their (and my own) pain. Which kinda sounds crazy to say, but I really do want to put them out of their misery after being written like this for almost a decade. Or maybe it's a purely selfish desire. Either way, I'd like to get this done in the next couple years. We'll see.

I'm in the basement, baby, drop on by

So I finished the second chapter of Roadkill. Only one person's read it so far, but she's still loving it. I'm personally loving the way I'm writing it-- it's completely open as I do it, for feedback and for others to enjoy, and for me to get help plotting. I'm also not stressing it at all, taking my time, and only writing when I feel inspired unless I haven't done it in awhile. It's pretty much the easiest thing since the history of ever, and I'm having a good time.

Script Frenzy starts tomorrow, and I haven't thought about it at all. I'm still planning on participating, but I'm not going to have a story planned beforehand. I want this script to be concentrated awesome in the most random way possible. It's going to be 20,000 words of completely directionless drivel, featuring blimps made of gouda and maybe a very happy merweasel. :) I guess what I'm saying is, I want to continue my recent trend of only writing what I want, instead of trying to write a hybrid of what I want and what I think might possibly be marketable, readable, or appealing to anyone other than me.

It's only after dark

I've released the rough draft of the first chapter of Roadkill to my writer's group and a couple other people, and I've gotten feedback from about a half a dozen people. It's kind of funny, because Roadkill is an accident... and they all love it so far. Two people bothered me for more when I wasn't quick to post the next chapter. (Which is because I'm still working on it.) Only one person thought it seemed okay, but it wasn't her genre, so she wasn't really too interested. Even the most critical person in my writer's group only had a couple complaints about verbiage, and one other thought describing someone's skin as "ochre" was too pompous. ;) All in all, not a bad start.

I waited on starting the next chapter until I had the same urge to write it as I did the first. Surprisingly, it only took a day or two. I was at dinner with The Boyfriend last night, and we were talking about waitressing versus stripping, and how stripping might be better in some ways... if you didn't mind getting groped by sticky-handed men who stink of tequila and whiskey, that is. When I said "tequila and whiskey," for some reason, my mind suddenly returned to Roadkill, and I knew that I wanted chapter two to be in a road-side titty bar out in the middle of Nevada. Neat-o.

I also discussed possibilities for later bits of the book with The Boyfriend. I know I want a heroic character to get involved with the flesh-golem woman, but in order to fall in love with someone who's dead and self-assembled out of bits of roadkill and other various corpses, you have to be pretty fucked up. I posed the question to The Boyfriend: "What would make you more fucked up than getting sexually molested by your parents?" We talked it out and figured out some great ways to fuck up the hero, and how to end the book. Which is also neat-o.

I'm tewtally loving the trashy, gritty, death-and-decay feeling to this book. It's fun. It's dark. It is, as one of the members of my writer's group said, "very different from Elise." It's a different side of my writing, and for once, I think I'm writing to my strengths. (A cold third-person POV in present tense.) I'm having such a party. I still occasionally find myself balking at opening up the word processor, but once I manage to make myself do it, it all comes out smooth as pureed intestine butter. Yet again, neat-o. ;)

Anyway. Back to writing.

Somewhere that's green

My third day working on Roadkill, and feeling pretty good. It's not fast writing, but it's also not bad writing, considering it's a rough draft-- and the fact that it's writing at all is good. I decided I feel good enough about it to give it a blog tag of its own. Aww.

The first chapter (rough draft) is done. It's my most polished rough draft yet. I've always been pretty well-known amongst my family and friends for clean rough drafts, because while the writing can totally suck, I almost never have spelling or punctuation errors, and things flow relatively well. It's always semi-coherent, anyway. Don't take this to mean that it still doesn't totally suck like all roughs, though, because it does. It's just readably sucky. ;)

What's special about this one, though, is that I'm taking care to think about what I'm writing as I'm writing it, which is good for the imagery and language. It also helps my language has improved because of all the reading I've been doing lately, if that makes any sense. (Can I really use the word "language" like that? I think I'm going to.) I feel kind of guilty for writing so slowly, but fuck it, I don't even care. I'm writing. Huzzah! *throws tickertape parade*

I have an idea for a short story, or possibly my screenplay for Script Frenzy. It's a post-apocalyptic world where money means nothing and small animals and livestock are the only thing worth trading, because animals (particularly ones worth eating) are scarce. While in this Dark Time, however, a small nomadic band finds what appears to be the eleventh commandment, which is... I dunno, something cool. Something that forces an revelatory journey. Okay, I'll admit it, I still have no idea what that story would be about. But it sounds cool. :P

My laptop, for writing and playing games and neglecting cleaning my apartment, has also been fixed. *happy dance*

So I guess today's just a good news day. :)