And Progress Is Made!

Despite the lack of motivation that I've been suffering from during the last week or so, I'm happy to report that progress has officially been made on my latest project, Dangerous Waters.

I've been trying to rework this project, which I've written once, and am currently in the process of giving a complete overhaul, for a couple of weeks now, though only seriously since I finished Pandora and sent that out to my last beta reader before it moves onto the stage of agents (scary!).  But this last week, I had stalled out on it.

I was worried it was because of how I was planning it out.  Rather than doing a full on planning (which I didn't think necessary, as the story has already been written once, no matter how different it's going to be when I'm done) I've been using the cork board I bought to help me figure out the restructuring Pandora currently went through.

The last time I worked on it, I had nine chapters up on the board and absolutely no idea on where the story was going.  In fact, those nine chapters weren't very good.  Okay, it wasn't the chapters themselves, just the order (and the emphasis I was putting on them).

I figured out the problem, eventually.  The novel centres around three women (who are the main characters of the entire series) and I was trying to give them all equal say in the novel.  In order to do that, I was structuring it very specifically, making sure that they each got a turn one after the other.

Needless to say, it wasn't going over very well.  So, I decided that one of the characters needed to be the main POV, whether or not the tension of the story revolved around her.  When I figured that out, I tried to restructure again, this time giving her twice as many chapters as the other two.

Again I found myself looking at those opening chapters and thinking that they just weren't right.  There wasn't enough action, or plot, or even world building.  They all felt like filler chapters, and that couldn't happen.

So tonight, when I finally decided that enough was enough and I was going to get some work done or die trying (okay...I wasn't actually willing to die over getting work done...but, hey, I'm a writer, I'm allowed to exaggerate) I sat down and stared at the board.

It took a while to get into it.  At first all that happened was taking down the cue cards and trying to figure out what was wrong with them.  Eventually, though, I managed to get that ball rolling.  Scene after scene started to present itself to me.  And, rather than focusing on whose POV was being used, I focused on where the story needed to go, and what would help me get there.

As a result there are currently seventeen chapters up on the cork board.  And the best part?  They feel right!  Like the story is actually moving, and there's enough tension and plot to not stall out!

I'm pretty excited to rework this project.  It was one of my favourites, and I know that my critique group will be happy too.  I can't wait to see what the final result will be.  I have a good feeling, though.  This novel is going to go somewhere.  Now all I have to do is figure out what I'm going to work on next.

Do you have any tips on how to get past those block?  How do you figure out what POV each scene needs to be from?

The Big Distraction

During Nano I always have this incredible focus.  I'm not sure what, exactly, about that month that allows me to just lose myself in my writing.  I've theorized in the past that it's the competition.  Anyone who knows me is aware of just how much that drives me through the month.  Watching my word count rise, and comparing it to that of the counts around me.  I find that incredibly motivating.

I've also wondered if it's just because there are so many people around doing the same thing as me.  Having the ability to go on the chat and know that every person there is struggling to get out the words they need to meet those goals is highly motivating.  It tells me that I'm not alone.  That we're in it together.

Whatever it is, though, it's certainly not present right now.

I've challenged myself to do NaNoEdMo.  Basically I have to edit for 50 hours this month. I haven't done too bad so far.  I've actually finished the book I was editing, and I've moved on to another project.  This one is getting completely rewritten, and it requires a lot of planning on my part so that I don't end up with the same issues that I had with it in the first place.

I'm counting it all as editing, because this isn't a first draft.  Well, technically it is.  There was so much wrong with that original draft, I can't even really call it an outline at this point.  But, to me, all of those hours that I put into that original draft weren't wasted.  It helped me to get to the point with my writing where I feel like I have the ability to write the story that it originally deserved to be, so I'm counting it as a rewrite and therefore editing.

I'm also going to count it as writing next month, but that's completely besides the point.

The point is that I've edited for seventeen and a half hours so far this month.  I'm supposed to be at twenty-two hours.

Why am I behind?  That's simple: distraction.  I'm not blaming the distractions themselves.  Is it Deception's fault that when I watched the first episode I couldn't stop watching it until I finished?  No!  Is it my friends fault that I would rather hang out in my email and wait to see what they say next rather than opening my scrivener project and getting to work?  No!  Is it my cat's fault that I walked away from my computer to go cuddle with her for twenty minutes so she would stop meowing outside my door?  Okay...that one might be on the cat.  But she didn't know that she was distracting me!

I can't concentrate.  I don't know why.  I tell myself that I'll do something, and then I just don't.  I need to figure out how to capture the feeling of NaNo in a bottle so that I can take a swig anytime I need a kick in the butt.

Until then, though, I suppose I'll just have to rely on twitter and my friends there to keep me going.  I need to have, at the very least, the planning for this book done before next month.  No more procrastinating.  No more telling myself that I can catch up on my next day off.  I need to focus.

Now to just tell my motivation that.

How do you keep your motivation in check?  Do you ever find your attention wandering, even when you really want to be working?

Motivation, Thou Art Fickle

Well, it happened.  The thing I knew was going to happen.  How did I know?  Because it always does.  I always fall prey to the mindset of not wanting to do anything for a single day.  And that single day somehow always follows the day when I was too busy to finish all of my work.  And where does that leave me?

Behind.  That's where it leaves me.  I'm supposed to be finishing up chapter 10 today during my editing challenge, and instead I'm stuck on chapter 6 (which requires rewrites) and I shouldn't be.  Because yesterday I had the entire day to work, and instead I chose to watch TV shows.

Now, you might think, how is it that I could just decide to watch TV shows and not feel guilty over not doing the work I promised myself to do?  The answer to that probably isn't what you think.  I do feel guilty.  Unfortunately guilt doesn't seem to keep my motivation in overdrive.  It just makes me wallow.  And when I wallow, I don't get any work done, I just keep putting it off more and more until suddenly I find myself piled under a mountain of work that I would have been able to get through if I hadn't been so damn lazy.

Don't get my wrong, I'm not complaining.  I did this to myself, just like I always do.  And I'm going to try and make sure that I get the work done today.  (This means editing 5 chapters -- at least -- writing one epiphany, and this blog post.)  At least I've gotten started before it's dark outside.

Unfortunately, now is when my brain has actually started to feed me information about the novel I'm currently planning.  (I don't know a whole lot about it yet, but I can tell you that it's set two hundred years in the future where only the very rich own cars, and most people travel around via teleportation pads.  The main character is a spy who has been forgotten and has taken to drink and sleeping around to forget .)  The problem with that is that I need to have Stolen Magick edited to a second draft by the end of January.  The other novel isn't going to even be written until June at the earliest, so why am I focusing on something that doesn't need to be done for a couple more months?

Okay, maybe I've slipped in to complaining a little bit.  Sorry.

Anyway, I'm once more recommitting myself to my goals.  I need to get this book editing.  I've promised myself that I'm going to plan, write and edit four complete novels this year, and damn it, I'm going to do it!  I just have to make sure that the motivationless days don't come around very often.  I have things to do, and if that means that I can't always keep up on all of the shows that I love, well so be it.

This is what I want to do with my life, and I'm not going to let a little bit of laziness get in my way.  So it's back to the YA for me.  I've got some words to wrestle into shape.

Do you ever find yourself unable to stay motivated?  How do you force yourself to keep working?

All The Ideas

First, I would just like to say, I'm sorry I'm a day late on my blog.  Yesterday was a not great day.  It was stressful at work, I had no sleep because my mom was admitted to the hospital and the doctors didn't know what was wrong, and I editing on my break really didn't go well

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I made it through the day, but the concept of putting up a blog made me want to cry a little bit, so I decided that I would just wait until today.  Hence, a blog post on Thursday!

Lately it seems like I've been completely focused on Pandora, and the Jayne Pheare series.  This isn't a bad thing.  I have other projects I'm working on, so I don't want to be too wrapped up in it, but on the whole I would say that being focused definitely has more benefits than drawbacks.

I'm currently editing Pandora (Book 1) and planning Malice (Book 2).  Along with that comes unexpected surprises.  Like ideas for book 4 (it has a name, can't remember it right now.)  I've had ideas for book 3 running through my head since I started the series, but to suddenly be hit with ideas for book 4 was a new experience, and one that has me excited.  It means that I'm really starting to take this series seriously.  I'm starting to see where it's going, and that means that I might actually see this one through!  While I've completed books before, I've never completed a series, but I have hope now!

When I start a new series, I can usually see the first book pretty clearly (hopefully, since I'm planning or writing it) and the rest just seems to be shrouded in fog.  I have vague glimpses of a light shining through, giving me a general idea of where I want the books to go, but there are no details to accompany it.

Now that I'm getting further and further in to the series, that fog is beginning to lift.  I'm starting to see how some of the things that I've known are going to happen will come about.  I can see the motivations that I knew must be there but didn't really understand.  And while I can't see the exact ending, I'm starting to get hints of how things are going to turn out, and that makes me so excited.

Not all of my characters have happy endings, of course.  I have at least four characters who die (I hate the idea just as much as you guys, but sometimes it just has to be done).  And I know that I'm going to have a YA spin off that features kids that don't even exist yet in the book (like, not even the possibility...).  But the closer I get to these things happening, the more I know that it was the right call, even if the way it happens wasn't what I originally thought.

So now I anxiously want to start writing a YA series that I can't start until (at the very least) book 4, but which I probably actually can't put out until after the series is done.  I desperately want to plan book 3, but can't until I'm done Malice, and all I think about are these characters, which can be a problem when I'm getting a critique about a different book.

For now, though, I'm just going to do what my brain tells me to, which is to work on the Jayne Pheare series.  I'm going to get it done for January, and then I'm going to get it published.

Have you ever gotten caught up in a book?

Hello Aliens. Please, Steal My Socks. (Day 8)

Last night I started on the next novel I had planned out for this November (I didn't get very far, but that's another blog post). Because today is the first day I get to concentrate solely on this novel, I thought I would tell you guys all about it, and where the idea came from.

In 2010 I took part in my first every NaNoWriMo, and it was a success! With 150k words under my belt, I was feeling on top of the world when I walked in to the TGIO party. I had my three novels tucked away in my bag, and I sat down with some new friends I had just made that month.

Giddy with success, and excited about what was to come afterwards, we started talking about the next NaNo.

We came up with all sorts of ideas for books, but the one that stuck with me (The one that I claimed I was going to write the next year) was an idea about a book that explained how one socks inevitably goes missing in the dryer. I said that, obviously, aliens ate the socks, and that needed to be a book.

Obviously I didn't write that book in 2011. First of all, I had forgotten about it, second, I just didn't find it plausible to actually become a book.

This year, though, when I sat down to pick out the ideas I was going to use for NaNo, that idea stuck out to me. I stared at it for a while, wondering what I could possibly do with a story like that, rejected the very thought that it could be turned in to a novel, and then finally gave in and sat down to start planning.

What I ended up with was no where near to the idea I had originally started with (which does tend to happen with most of my story ideas, honestly.)

My main character is a ten year old by the name of Tommy Thompson (yes, it did take me a while to think of the name, and yes I did pick it because of how memorable it is). In the very first chapter his world is changed forever when he finds an alien stealing a sock out of the dryer.

The alien tries to kidnap him, but when Tommy evades him, he goes after Tommy's half-sister instead. He trieds to tell his mom, but she doesnt believe him. When his friend Felicia says they need to go after Emily themselves.

The story follows them as they go on an adventure up to the mother ship, find countless other kids the aliens have stolen to bring to their home planet and serve them and begin searching for the little sister Tommy never thought he wanted.

As you may have noticed, it's a Middle Grade novel. I've never written anything like it before, and I am a little worried about having such a young main character. I think I've already made some mistakes with word choice, but that's editable. Plus, I started the story in third, but I really do think I need to change it to first.

Other than that, though, I'm excited to see what comes of this idea that I jokingly called a novel two years ago. Who knows, this could be the novel that puts me on the map as an author!

Do you have any story ideas that you're not sure would work as a novel? What are you currently writing about?

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Daily Word Count: 4,722

Total Word Count: 75,600

Wait, That Wasn't Supposed To Happen (Day 6)

As I'm sure all of you are aware by now, I'm a planner. Not just a casual planner, either. I plan my books longer than I write them. (For those of you thinking that's not saying much, I do spend about a month on planning, so that's something, right?)

Anyway, because I spend so much time planning, I never expect my books to hold too many surprises. I know that I'll get some, I just don't expect them to be too big, or noteworthy. And I'm okay with that, honestly. I almost prefer not having the surprises. It makes the writing easier, because I'm not sitting there wondering why this character is acting that way, or whether that other character is important or not.

So, I started to write the first book I have planned out for NaNo this year. (Stolen Magick is a YA set in a school that teaches young Arcanists how to control their magick, which presents more as abilities than typical magic scenarios. This school also accepts humans, and the two groups, which aware of each other, and even mingling in occasional classes, are kept mostly separate. Phaedra joins the school after her mother dies. Originally she is though human, but eventually she discovers she has magick too, and soon chaos reins)

It was going pretty good. The chapters weren't ending up as long as I thought they were going to be, and I'll admit, I was a little worried about reaching the 80k I needed this book to be, but the story itself was going exactly the way I had planned. Maybe that's why it happened.

The first thing to go wrong was a chapter being added. I'd realized that there was more that I hadn't shown that could be important. First one chapter, then two and now I'm sitting at eight chapters added.

The next thing was a character forced herself in to the book. She started out as just a girl walking past Phaedra making a comment. When she appeared in another scene and named herself, though, I knew I was in trouble.

Once she was added, another character showed up, this one much more unique and surprising.

The enemy of my character (not the antagonist, they just didn't get along) turned out to be so much nicer than I originally thought. I added too many layers and now she's friends with Phaedra!

Two more subplots somehow wound themselves in there around the two characters that showed up, both subplots will be extending multiple books.

And, finally, there was a love interest that I hadn't originally planned on. Between Phaedra and one of the characters I had originally planned on. Which would have been fine, except that I knew he was dying about half way through the book, and every time they were cute it made me that much more sad when I had to kill him.

Before you say it, I know, these surprises are making the book better, but it's just so frustrating to have to change the basic plot of my book that I worked so hard on to accommodate everything. I'm finding myself constantly thinking of new things that would be happening because of it, and my easy, no hassle book is suddenly inserting itself in to my life.

I suppose I'll just have to go along with it and hope that my other books don't do the same thing. Hopefully I'll have a much better book in the end. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Do you ever find yourself with surprises in your novel? Are you a planner, or a pantser?

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Daily Word Count: 11,079

Total Word Count: 66,092

The Shut Down (Day 2)

Normally I'm pretty good at getting my stuff done. Stop laughing, I am! Okay, so I can procrastinate with the best of them. I think I even procrastinated on procrastinating once, but that's besides the point. The point is that I normally get my stuff done, if not on the day it needs to be done, then pretty close. Especially if it's a precursor for something else. Like, say, the planning for nano.

This year is my third year doing nano. The first year, I was terrified out of my wits that I wasn't going to write my 50k. The second year I was more prepared, so I upped my goal (then had someone challenge me and I upped it again). This year, though I did up my goal, it was by so little that my brain barely registered it as a challenge.

So, rather than frantically planning and getting things done the couple of weeks before nano, my brain did what I'm assuming it thought was logical. It shut down.

I'm not even kidding on this one. Two weeks before the start of nano, and suddenly I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't even decide what my characters looked like. I found myself watching far too many tv shows, unwilling to even look at the pages I needed to fill before the beginning of nano. The boxes for my move sat unfilled, and the editing I swore I would have done before November sat remembered, but ignored in my bag.

I shut down.

Of course, the sudden descent of unproductivity made for a rather unorganized move, and more than a few headaches on my part.

Add to that the fact that I had to cram all of my planning in to the last two days before nano started, and had to put off the editing until December (which sucks, because I wanted to have it submission ready for January) and going in to November, I wasn't feeling like the robot I normally am.

Despite that, though, I'm determined to get my 320k this year. That might be a little rough, as the first book I've started is coming in under the goal (which might actually be a miracle for me) but I'll make up those words somewhere.

I have an office, I have a calender, and I have all the support of the wrimos here in Calgary. I have everything I need to accomplish my goal. Now I just have to fight off the lazy unproductive part of my brain, and keep writing!

What do you do to get yourself ready for Nano?

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Daily Word Count: 11,488

Total Word Count: 27,683

The Amazing Disappearing Chapter

At the beginning of the month I set out some goals for myself for my editing and planning.  The planning I'm ahead on.  I've completed one novel (the planning stages) that wasn't supposed to be done until the end of the month and started another one that shouldn't have been started until October, so I'm pretty happy with that.

The editing, though, hasn't been going so well.  I was doing fine until I came to a chapter that I had to rewrite.  I knew what I wanted there, but every time I sat down to write it I felt like it was going absolutely no where.

What did I do?  I procrastinated.  I assumed that eventually I would figure it out and get it done, and I continued on blissfully unaware of just how much time was slipping away while I allowed this chapter to just sit there and taunt me.

The other night, though, I decided that was enough of that and sat down seriously to finish writing it.

I wrote about 120 words in a half an hour.  120 words.  That's about what I write in 2 minutes, not half and hour.

At the end of that, I decided that it was time to figure out why it just wasn't working.

I looked at the chapter before it, which ended with my main character frustrated and feeling the need to just get out of the house.  Then I looked at the chapter after, which had my main character trying to work out that frustration with the use of a punching bag.  Then I looked back at the chapter I was trying to rewrite where my main character did something that had to be done eventually, but ultimately put there changed the pacing and tone of the novel too much.

So, I did the only thing I could do.  I took out the chapter.

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't an easy decision for me.  I didn't want to lose the words.  I know how long I want this novel to be by the end of this process, and right now it's about 3k below that goal, and that's all thanks to this chapter.

It was frustrating to watch it go, because I've been trying to make the thing work for so damn long, but I knew I had to let it go for the good of the book.

Sometimes chapters or scenes that we originally write just don't end up working, especially after revisions and changes.  It's hard to hit that delete button, because that's work that we did.  We wrote those words, and now we're watching them disappear knowing that we're not planning on replacing them.  But we can't just leave them there.  If we do, it makes the book less than it could be, and ultimately that's what we want more than anything in the world.

So with a heavy heart I will say good bye to that chapter, and continue editing the rest of the book (which needs to be done in 7 days!  Eep!).  At least now I can move past that chapter and actually make some progress on it.

I Am A God!!

Those are the words that I first shouted to my sister and roommate over a year ago.  They, of course, didn't believe me.  They don't understand the world of writing, so I forgave them.  Then I showed them proof:

This is a map.  Clearly.  But it's not just any map.  This one hangs on my wall right behind my desk, and it has brought me much joy since it was given to me for Christmas last year.

You may notice that this particular map isn't anywhere on the known earth.  That's because this map was drawn out based on a world that I created!  That's right, I made that world.  And isn't that pretty much the sole prerequisite to being a God?  Creating an entire world out of nothing??

Sadly this world has been shelved along with the characters that I so lovingly created (and managed to gain fans for).  But the excitement I felt when I first saw the finished project is something I feel every single day when I'm planning, writing, and even editing.

As a writer, every day I get to create worlds.  I get to dream up new games, and creatures.  I get to commit words to paper that one day may even get read by others.

In fact, when I'm writing, all I ever think about is how the people reading my words will get involved in the worlds I've created.  Will they care about the main characters and the plights they have to survive?  Will they want to visit that part of the world because they would really love to see that creature I created?  Will they get so mad at someone that they'll be tempted to stop reading because if they don't they might just throw the book against the wall?

Will they fall in love with a character and cry when they die?  Will they clap and laugh in glee when those two characters that have been fighting the attraction they obviously feel for each other finally get together?  Will their eyes mist when a new life is brought in to that world?

I want my world's to be as real to my readers as they are to me.  I want my readers to feel like they're there.  Like they knew the cities and the countries that I create.  Like they're best friends with my characters.

If I can achieve that, no matter how well I do as an author (according to the publishing houses and whatever agent I may eventually get) then I know I have achieved everything a writer could ever really want.

So, I will continue to be a God.  To play around with the world's I create, throw my character's twists that they never saw coming, and kill off characters that I would rather see live, because it's what I do.  I am a writer.


**Map created by the ever amazing Eric A. Satchwill.  Visit his site to find out how to order your own map of your world, and become a God by your own right!**

Wait...I'm Not Playing Catch Up?

So, I set some goals for myself about halfway through last month.  What usually happens when I do something like this is that I think I have so long before my goal, that I start to procrastinate.  And then I continue to procrastinate until I realize I have to go to bed.  And then days have gone by.  And then suddenly the goal date is only a couple of days away and there's nothing done, and I end up missing the goal date completely.

When I set these goals, that thought was in the back of my mind.  I thought I was going to let the same things happen.  That I was going to just let those date fly by and my goals would disappear right along with them.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't purposely intend to miss those dates.  I didn't think that I would just let those days go by and not care, I just kind of assumed that I would do the same thing I always do.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that it's the fifth of the month, and I'm currently three and a half chapters in to the ten chapters I need to have done by the fifteenth.  Which means that, as of right now, I'm on track with my editing goal.  On Track!

As for my planning goal, I'm actually about 75% of the way through the brainstorming and cast list compilation, which need to be done for the end of day Sunday.  Which means, I'm on track with that too.

I think this might actually be the first time I've ever been on track for any of my goals that weren't a part of nano.

Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy this month (and I don't actually think that's going to change any time soon.  But now that I'm on track (and plan on actually finishing one of those goals) I'm determined to continue on this path of productivity.

As soon as I'm done this I'm going to be working on more editing.  (I only have about two and a half hours before I go to bed, so we'll see how much I actually get done.)  I'm hoping to get to the end of chapter 25.

With that said, though, I think it's time for me to get to work.  So I'll talk to you all on Sunday!!

Gotta Love Our Day Jobs

Like most beginning writers, I work a day job so that I can continue to write without worrying about pesky things like paying the bills.  It's not something I particularly enjoy doing.  First of all, it involves customer service, and those of you who have been in customer service know how annoying that can be.  People tend to be even more stupid than you originally think.

Next, I work in a registry.  That means that I do things like issue drivers licenses, car registrations, marriage licenses, birth certificates and lots of other things that people associate with government buildings and long lines.  Except that in Alberta Registries are privatized, so I don't actually work for the government.  I don't get any of the benefits of a government job, but still have to deal with things like fines on accounts that people don't want to take responsibility for and getting yelled at for policies and laws that I obviously had nothing to do with getting them put in place.

It's not horrible either.  I've worked some pretty bad jobs, especially in the years where I didn't know what I wanted to do.  Those years were a string of bad jobs while I settled on five different career choices I could have before moving on to another one.

Still, if there's one thing I've learned over the last year and a half, it's that I want to be a writer.  I'm never happier than when I'm writing my current project.  Even editing, tedious as I may find it, leaves me at least with a feeling of accomplishment.  I'm sure that my family probably thought it was going to be a temporary idea of a career path when I first started on this journey, just like all of the other ones.  The thing is, this is the first thing I've found that I can actually see myself still doing in three years, ten years, even when I'm old and ready to retire.  This is what I want to do.

Unfortunately, writing isn't one of those careers that you can throw a resume at, hope for a good interview than work your way up.  Instead it takes spending a lot of time on a manuscript, query letter, tag line and synopses.  It requires you to send out this project that is basically you baring your soul to complete strangers and praying that they like it as much as you do.  It means getting rejection letter after rejection letter until you find the right fit with an agent, publisher or even just deciding that you would rather self publish.

It's a grueling process that not everyone can get through, and I sometimes wish that I could find something easier to do with my life, but I know that this is what I want to do.

For example, last Wednesday there was an incident that brought down nearly all of the systems that we use at the registry.  We thought it would be up the next day, but in fact we didn't get up and going until yesterday morning.  That means that I basically had 5 days where I was either off or worked shorter hours.

I was worried about the money at first (we worked it out in the end, so I'm not worried about it anymore.) but that was until I realized how I was actually feeling about this break.  I used the extra time to write, to plan and to edit.  I basically buried myself in the writing process, and by the end of the day on Monday, I was in a great mood.  I mean, I don't remember the last time I was in this good of a mood.

Going back to work on Tuesday and working 10 hours took away from that feeling, but now that I've had the tiniest taste of life where I'm not working two full time jobs making sure that my bills are paid while still doing all the writing I can, I know that this is all I want to do.  I want to be published.  I want to make enough money to survive off of writing.  I don't want to have to dread going into work every single day for 8 hours, just to feel too drained to do anything when I get home.

While I can't rush the process of writing, I can commit to it.  I will be published one day.  Eventually you're going to see D.C. Menard on the shelf at your local bookstore, and I'm going to be able to go down to part time or even quit, and then I think I will be pretty damn happy.

A Planner's Worst Nightmare

As I told you all a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I was going to write a novel without creating a plot for it, just to see how it went.  I started that novel last week.  All I had when I started it was: A basic idea that finally spoke to me after hours of flipping through my idea book; the name of the main character; and A title for the book.

First of all, I have to say, I'm sure I've posted more blog posts than I can count about how much control my characters have over the story. (Once again, I would like to clarify that I don't, in any way, blame my characters for the product that comes out in the end, just what information they didn't give me.  I will always take responsibility for my novels, good or bad.)  When I'm pantsing, though, that control goes far beyond anything I'm comfortable with.

In the past I've had characters randomly show up, but now it's like an epidemic.  Characters are popping up all over the place in this novel.  It started with a pink haired vampire, who didn't even get named.  Moved on to a tiny black haired four year old who creeped the hell out of me.  Throw into the mix a 'trusted' friend that her mother pointed out to her that I just don't like, and we've got ourselves what feels a little like an uncontrollable crowd of characters.

None of these characters ever do what I say.  Just when I think I'm getting the hang of them, they go and do something that I would have never expected.  Including the creepy girl getting friends.  Her mother's jaw may have dropped when she hugged, but I swear my surprise was worse.  I nearly stopped typing and I was in the middle of a mongering session.

The worse part of it all is that I have no idea what's going to happen.  I'm literally taking it chapter by chapter.  I have these vague ideas of what could happen, but that certainly doesn't mean that I do everything I think of.  Hell, my character went to the park where I planned to have her attacked by...well...someone, and instead she sat down and had a discussion with her best friend's kid about making friends.  I mean, talk about not following a plot, these characters refuse to conform to any ideas I have in mind for them.

I was sure I knew the end of my story, and I really do.  Well, the basic idea of it, anyway, however I'm coming to think that the person who causes the end of the book isn't correct at all.  I was wrong on all counts.

Add to that the fact that I have a character who's supposed to be a major player in the novel barely making an appearance, and I feel like this novel is a mess.

I know what you're thinking.  That it's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be, and to be truthful, it's probably not.  I'm just to certain things when I'm writing.  One of them is that I know my character.  They don't usually surprise me (too much) because I have a really good idea about who they are and how they would react to situations.

I also know exactly where my story ends and how my characters are going to get through it.  IN this novel I keep finding myself in situations that I didn't expect, and therefore couldn't have thought through before hand.

It's scary, and it feels wrong.  I love writing it, though.  Even with all the strange surprises, and the way the characters basically tell me how it is (and by tell me, I mean, I type the words then gape at them as I realize what my character just did.)

After all of that, though, I have to say, I don't regret this decision.  I keep looking at the book and thinking that it's not actually too bad, though why that shocks me so much is completely beyond me.  I still wonder where it's going and what the point of this novel is, but I think that's kind of fun.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give up on my planning.  I actually really enjoy the work I put into a novel before I start writing it, but this series (if this first book turns out to be good enough for me to even consider continuing it) will always be written without a plot.  I don't think I could force these characters into a plot now if I tried.

Now let's see if I can continue to write the novel and not get stuck at the 25k mark, as so many writers around me seem to do.  Wish me luck!

Beware The Writer

Being a writer has some perks, but in the long run, most people would look at being a writer as not such a great thing.  After all, we talk to voices in our heads.  We're often kept up at night because ideas are occurring to us. We often find ourselves procrastinating until the last possible moment, so plans are cancelled while we're frantically writing/editing/ripping our manuscripts to shreds.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying being a writer is a bad thing, in fact, I love it, but a lot of people just don't see the perks.

First of all, we can claim creative license.  What does that mean?  It means that, should we get upset or annoyed over a situation or with a person, there is always the possibility that the annoyance will be worked out with writing.  (This could include things like characters being created who look or act remarkably like the person whose annoying us and killed off.  Or situations that we were recently in being put in a book and the outcome being completely different.)  It's a great way to work off the stress or annoyance without taking it out on other people.  Personally, I think this is a great advantage to being a writer.  If I start to stress, I write about it.  That way it's not all building up inside.

Then there's the fact that we can get completely lost in these worlds that we've created.  Have a two hour trip to the hair dresser planned?  No problem!  Writers can spend that time thinking about a scene they've been having issues with.  Of course, I for one, tend to like to write down what I'm trying to think about, but if I need to I can work with just imagining it.  I've worked through more than one issue in my scenes during a time when I couldn't pull out anything to work on it.  Sometimes it even helps to get to sleep, cause you can tell yourself stories.  Don't even get me started on what you can make up for your kids once you have them.

The excuse 'I had an idea and had to write it down' can get you out of all sorts of conversations that you're not enjoying.  Now, I've yet to use this one myself, but I have actually had to go write down an idea before, so I'm sure that when it does happen, I'll be able to pull it off.  Getting bored during a conversation?  Act all excited and tell them an idea just occurred to you and disappear.  They might think you're a little strange, but they'll forgive you.  After all, you're a writer!  You're creating a novel!  It must have been a really important idea.

Have you ever been out and about and noticed signs hanging on businesses doors?  Have you ever noticed when the grammar/spelling/anything is wrong with it?  Writers do.  It's like our eye is immediately drawn to the mistake.  Now, this can be annoying for us, because it bugs us that they got it wrong and still put it up.  (Then again, some of us don't edit our blog posts...)  On the other hand, writers can feel superior when they read those signs because they would never make such an obvious mistake!  More than one good eye roll has occurred thanks to this little superpower.

Finally (and this is my favourite) is creativity.  Not to be confused with creative license.  Creativity is something we can use in everyday life.  On all sorts of things.  Decorating a room.  Setting a fancy table.  Coming up with solutions to problems.  All of these things take creativity and vision that writers have.  That they need in order to write their books.  Of course, this can also be used when plotting the murders of the people that annoy you when writing about it doesn't work.  It's the writers who come up with the truly creative deaths.

Remember all of these things the next time you're talking to a writer.  If they suddenly disappear, it could be that your conversation isn't quite what you thought it was.  If they seem distracted, they could be thinking about their latest project.  And, if they're starting to get annoyed, they could be thinking about putting you in a scene (or, just planning your death).  You never quite know what's going on in the mind of the writer.

So Little Time

My goal, as can be seen by looking at my progress before section, is to have The Commons to a completed second draft so that I can send out to my beta readers by the fifteenth.  That's a whole nine days away, and guess how far I am from finishing it?

If you guessed not anywhere near close, you were right!  I'm stuck around chapter 22 (in which I have to rewrite the first scene) of 35.  In the last two days I've barely gotten anything done.  It's a sad fact for me to admit, as I was actually planning on doing at least two chapters a day.  Of course, I was hoping to be done a bit early so I could take one more look over it and see if I missed anything, but that's definitely not going to happen now.

Nine days and thirteen chapters.  Which means I no longer have time to procrastinate.  I can't let myself get distracted by all the shows I want to watch.  I don't have the time to waste, anymore.  If I do get distracted, I'll end up missing my deadline.  And that's not something I'm willing to let happen.  If I don't get my manuscript out to my betas on time, then they wont get it back to me on time.  If I don't get it back in time, then I can't use the feedback to go through it one last time and start sending out queries.

It's the domino effect, writer style.

Now, I suppose you're asking: 'What does it matter if you get your queries out on time?'.  That's a very good question to ask.  The answer is, I was really hoping to do both Camp Nano sessions being held this year.  I also need to plan out the novels I'll be writing during nanowrimo.  If my editing isn't done, and if the queries aren't sent out, then I have to sacrifice one of those things.

In June I'll be taking part in the first session of Camp Nano, where I'll be writing Pandora, I book that I was supposed to write about a month ago.  Procrastination got the better of me then too, and I only managed 25,000 words in the time I should have been able to write 100,000 words.  I've been trying to figure out a way to get motivated when it's no nano...but that's another post.


The point of the matter is, I've already put off writing this novel once.  I can't do that to the characters again.  They've been awfully patient while I've been editing.  Mostly because I promised them that I would be finishing their story in June.  I'm afraid of what would happen if I tried to put it off again.  There might be a riot.

In August, I'm hoping to write The Techs which is the second book in The Commons series.  I've just barely begun to plan it, but I already have a bit of the story line going on, so I'm getting excited.  Of course, I don't want to write the novel until I'm completely done editing the first one.  I'm a little too wary of the changes that I could make which would mean far more work in editing the second one.  I've done that once, and I'll never do it again.

In August I'll need to write about 100,000 words.  I'll have even less time to work on the novel which should, by then, be completed. 

After that comes the planning for the three novels I'm going to be writing during nanowrimo.  Yes, three.  I'm a little crazy like that.  I'll only have two months instead of the planned three.

All of this means that I only have so much time to get my editing done.  I only have so much time to get my queries out.  And I don't have time to be acting like I have all the time in the world.

Nine days to finish thirteen chapters.  It's going to be tight, but I think I can do it.  What's my motivation?  In November I'll be taking a trip down to San Francisco to go the The Night Of Writing Dangerously.  And when I'm down there introducing myself to people, I don't want to tell them that I'm still working on the novel that I'm going to be sending out real soon.  I want to tell them that I have queries out and waiting for responses.  Or maybe, just maybe, that I found an agent

My plotting process

Today I thought I would share with you my process to writing a book.  This came about thanks to my last blog post, when I talked about how I'm an extensive planner.  It also came about because the only other thing I want to remotely talk about is basically me complaining, and I figure you all have heard enough of that.  So, planning it is.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm sure.  I actually spend longer planning a novel than I do on the writing.    During nano especially.  I will plan a novel for an entire month, then write it in ten days.

My planning process is when I get to know my characters.  When I figure out the story.  When I discover all of those things that some authors don't discover until they're well into their novel.

First I start with some brainstorming.  This may seem like an obvious step to you, but it's really not.  In fact, when I was in high school I can actually remember losing marks because I refused to do any of the brainstorming.  I thought it was dumb.  My ideas just came to me as a wrote, and there was nothing wrong with that.  Now I love brainstorming.  I find out so much stuff just by writing down whatever I might be currently thinking about in regards to that novel.  Thoughts occur to me just as I'm writing random things down.  I brainstorm a good 40% of the month that I tend to spend on planning.  That's because brainstorming is a great time to get to know the characters a little better, find out some back story.  It's also a great time to rough out a quick sketch of what the plot might actually look like.  For anyone who hasn't planned before but wants to start, if you do nothing else, brainstorm.  It will get you so much further than you thought possible.

Also during the brainstorming process is when I do any research that needs to be done.  On the novel I'm currently working on, that took me to all sorts of places.  Curling and how to play it (which came about largely to me being distracted by a curling game, even though I've never cared about it before.  Then a tiny voice in the back of my head piped in that she loved it...thanks Jayne...) Also I did some research on werewolf lore.  Not that I really stuck to any of it.  When it comes to supernatural elements, I tend to take some creative liberties.  I picked the things I liked from everything I read and stuck it in.  I may have also done research on other kinds of supernatural beings, even though none of that comes into play in the first book.

Sometime near the end of the brainstorming (usually when I've come to a point where I'm starting to feel like I need to name some of these characters that are starting to pile up, or even just keep track of them a little bit) I start a cast list.  This doesn't necessarily mean these are my 'main characters'.  In fact, I generally have far more background characters than anything else.  On my current cast list, in fact, more than half are characters that are: 1) Already dead, but I needed to know their names.  2) Don't appear until book 2 or 3. 3) Were in somebody's past and may eventually resurface, but for now all that matters is the role they played before.  I pretty much write down every character who has the potential of even being mentioned in the book.  I find it easier to keep track of them that way.

Next come the character bibles.  Although I do love the character bibles because of the insight they bring me into the character, sometimes I find it hard to get through this step.  I find reasons to not do some, and I end up doing far less than I probably should.  Character bibles, though, are very helpful in things like giving my characters an appearance, and keeping it consistent throughout the entire novel.  Also it helps to clearly plan out the motivations of my characters, so that when I get to creating an actual plot, they're not acting completely different than they should be.  I usually print these off and keep them in a folder with any maps or floor plans I've created (with help from the amazingly talented Eric Satchwill).  I generally end up referring back to this folder many times in the writing process, so once I actually get through them, I never regret it.

Finally come the time for me to write my plot.  I use the writing software Scrivener, and I adore it.  Using that program I'm able to set up a different folder for each chapter, and even add multiple scenes to each folder.  (When I'm done writing I can then compile the project, and it all shows up within one document...it's pretty fantastic).  While Scrivener can also help you with all of you planning, including the brainstorming, I've only ever used it for the plot portion.  Still, I love that I can go into the each chapter and write what each scene is about.  I never write huge amounts because, let's face it, the story is probably going to change somewhat before I get there.  But I do write something in every single scene before I start the novel itself.

Well, there you have it.  After all of that a month has generally gone by, and I'm getting ready to actually write the novel.  I have a good idea of what's going on, and I'm not worried that I'm going to get halfway through and have to make some story changing decision that isn't going to go over well.  (I may also be massively indecisive...)

Now, I'm not saying that everyone should plan the exact same way as me.  Everyone plans differently, I totally get that.  I'm not even saying that everyone should plan their novel.  I totally get that everyone approaches their books differently.  This is just what I need to do in order to feel comfortable and familiar enough with the story and characters in order to write the novel.  Like I said before, if you take anything from this, I'm hoping it's the brainstorming section.  I sincerely believe that brainstorming can improve your story more than you would think possible.

A Fresh Start

Well, the race is on.  Again.  It's time for me to start writing a novel.  One that I've told myself I'll try and get out in the same amount of time it took me to write a novel during November.  In case you're wondering, that means that I need to write this novel in only ten days.  I'm not entirely sure I can actually do it, but that's got more to do with the fact that I'm not putting my life on hold for this book like I do in November.  I have plans with friends, I haven't stopped going to critique group, and I don't know if I'll even have time to write ten thousand words a day.

But now that I've decided to do it, and even promised the character that it would be done by April, I can't back out.  First of all, if I did, I would end up with a character yelling at me and not giving me any rest until  I actually wrote it.  Second, I would be disappointed because I wouldn't have that novel I need to submit to my critique group so I can get my current novel ready for beta readers then for submission.

The worst part is that I have everything planned out.  And when I say everything, trust me, I mean EVERYTHING.  I have character bibles for each of my main to more important background characters.  Each bible consists not only of what they look like, but also their personality, their goals in the book, the motivations, what makes obtaining their goals difficult, any growth they have in the book, what their role is and any back history I've come up with for them.  (In case you're wondering, these characters have some of the strongest and most details character histories that I've ever written...)  I have pages and pages of brainstorming, as well as two pages devoted entirely to a cast list, naming every character that could possibly come up in the book.  And, finally, I have an entire plot written out (not too detailed, because I'd spend the entire time writing frustrated.  My characters don't really like to stick to the plan...) in my scrivener file.

The writing should be the easy part with all of that planning out of the way.  Especially since I don't have to make any actual decisions while I'm writing (which is good as I'm kind of indecisive...) I should be able to just sit down and write it, after all, my characters are even talking to me, and I can see some of the scenes in my head!  Scenes that I desperately want to write.

So what's holding me back?

Chapter one.  It's as simple as that.  When I wrote the plot I made it very vague, and I hadn't really decided on anything, up to and including what the guy did to deserve being killed.  I didn't even know what he looked like or did for a living.  I didn't have a single clue as to how my main character was going to approach him, never mind kill him.  Both of these things were very important as my character is actually an assassin and was being hired to kill the guy.

When I sat down to write, I found myself staring at a blank page certain I had a fantastic idea, but having no idea how I was going to start it.  Where this first chapter, that introduces the character, but not really the story, was going to go.  My mind blanked.  So I got desperate and wrote the first thing that came to mind.  In first person as I had planned.

Turns out the first thing I think of isn't always the right thing.  Or even good.  After 1200 words I was getting increasingly frustrated and realizing that if I continued to write like that the book that I've been looking forward to writing for so long was going to go the way of all the other books I've written so far: directly into that dusty old folder in the back of my computer.  That's the last thing I want.

So I did the only thing I could do.  The thing that nearly made me cry, as those were the only words written on the novel and I was supposed to write 10,000 words.  I deleted them and started over.

While it was a hard thing to do, it was the best thing.  I changed to third person, which I find much easier to write in. (Originally I thought I should do first because so many other books like the one I'm writing are written in first.  When I first started writing I actually wrote in first and never thought I'd be able to change to third.  I was wrong...)

Now I'm only 450 words into the first chapter (a far cry from my 10k goal...) but they're far better than the original 1200 I had been working with.  I'm looking forward to writing the scene, and I'm once again hopeful that I can write something other than crap.

Sometimes you really do have to give yourself a fresh start, whether you're at 1200 or 65,000 words.  Just make sure that you need to give up on it before you do.  You'll kick yourself if you start all over again just to realize that what you had already written had potential.

Well, time for me to get back to writing...hopefully I can hit that elusive 10k soon.  I've gotta get this book written!

Hello Procrastination...We Meet Again

I love planning new novels.  I think I might like the planning stages more than anything else.  I love figuring out the characters and their history.  How those histories will make them interact together.  Where the story is going.  Why things are going to happen the way they do.  And even how the hell I'm going to make the things that need to happen work when all of a sudden I realize that my character actually might not do that very important plot point.

Figuring out those characters and plots is something that I love to do.  I talk excitedly about it to anyone who will listen, even though half of them aren't writers, and therefore couldn't care less about what I'm saying.  In fact, I've had more than one person give me that look. The look that tells me they think I might actually be a little crazy.  (Other writers will know this look.  It seems to be a hazard of the job.)

Some parts of it, though, can be a little hard to get through.  For example, the character bibles.

Now these aren't something that every writer out there does.  In fact, most of the writers I know don't do them.  I find them really helpful when I'm writing, because I can glance at them quickly if I forget an important fact about one of my characters (like their hair or eye colour)

Honestly, I don't use much of the rest of the bible during the writing process, but I find the rest of it really helpful before I start writing.  The bibles help me to truly get a grasp of each of my characters.  I figure out their motivations.  Their goals.  Their quirks.  And, most importantly (at least to me) their history.

The only problem is that I figure out their story, and then I don't want to actually put it into words on the page.  (Yeah, I know, I'm a writer.  That's exactly what I want to do with my life.)  I think it's just that these are scenes and information about the character that I don't get to actually write.  They all happen before my story took place.  So while I have all these ideas about their history, and love the insights these histories give me into my characters, I find myself a little disconnected with them.  I didn't take part in any of the decisions they made.  It's frustrating.

So, instead of continuing with the bible and forcing myself to get through those histories that I love but don't want to write, I do other things to keep myself busy.  Things like watching television shows that I 'need' to get caught up on.  Or writing a blog post (even though I am, technically, supposed to post one today.  I told myself I would at least finish the bible I'm working on.  I didn't...)

Procrastination is an old friend of mine.  I perfected it in school, and we haven't grown apart at all since I graduated.  In fact, since deciding that I want to become a writer, we've become even closer than we've ever been.  We're like those annoying best friends you see on the street, giggling and laughing like the world is a joke.  The ones who buy the necklaces that break apart just so they can show the world how close they are.  How there's nothing in the world that can come between them.  Because their friendship is just that strong.

I think I proved my point.

Shiny New Ideas Take 2

Lately I've been getting a lot of Shiny New Ideas coming through.  Thankfully I've got a book specifically devoted to that very thing, but that's not the point. The point is, I don't have time to be working on shiny new ideas.

I'm currently in the middle of planning (soon to be writing) one book, editing another book, and even have a few collaborations in the mix.  Shiny new ideas aren't going to be worked on until, at the very earliest, during the June session of camp nano (something that I wasn't actually planning on doing, but may end up participating in.  Still thinking about it.  I'll need to get a little bit closer to the date before I really know if I can or not.)

So why are they coming to me now?  Why not when I'm in the middle of my editing and welcome the distraction?  (Yeah, yeah, I know.  I shouldn't be welcoming a distraction when I'm editing.  I'm working on it, I swear.  I just...don't like editing...)

An answer was suggested to me yesterday: The reason Shiny New Ideas present themselves when I'm planning or writing is because I'm being creative.  Those gears are already turning while I'm trying to figure out the novel or write the scene, so those new ideas occur to me because I'm open to them already.

Unfortunately this means that, even for that quick second, I'm distracted by this new idea instead of concentrating on the book I need to pay attention to.  Distraction tends to mean that I'm pulled out of the world, and I can sometimes have a hard time getting back into it.  Focusing on the characters that I need to focus on, rather than the tantalizing story that the new voices bring with it.  (Yes, I'm aware how crazy that makes me sound.  You don't need to tell me.  I've come to accept my craziness as a part of who I am.)

If only there was some way to ignore these thoughts while I'm brainstorming, but still be able to remember them when I'm not and have time to get them down.  I wish it worked like that, unfortunately muses and characters seem to work on the same idea: When we start talking, you had better jump, or we're going to shut up for a good long time and leave you annoyed and frustrated.

For now, though, I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear it.  After all, I've been museless before and it just isn't any fun. (is there such a thing as an editing muse?  If so, can someone tell mine that she's/he's been seriously slacking?  They've used all of their vacation time, and they need to get back so I can actually get past the first draft of a book!  Thanks.)  For years I thought that I didn't have a muse at all, so now that she's talking to me, I find myself unwilling to risk angering her enough that she goes on vacation again.

I suppose I should stop ranting now, though.  After all, Shiny New Ideas, even untimely ones, are better than having no ideas at all, which I know that some writers have a problem with.  I just have to learn how to keep my attention focused on one thing for long enough to actually finish it.  At this point I keep starting series, then scrapping it before I even get to the second book, which means that so far my characters haven't gotten an ending.  I'm hoping The Commons is the one that's going to keep my attention for longer.  Finger's crossed!

Writing Together

In my last post I told you all about wordmongering, a fantastic hashtag that created a writing community on twitter.  And that's what I want to talk about today again.  A writing community.

Most people think that writing is a solitary activity.  For the most part, they're right.  The actual act of sitting down and writing is something you have to do alone.  You can be in a group of people, which I actually find quite helpful, but the writing itself is a solitary thing.

I find, though, that at times the writing can be more of a group activity than most people would think.  Without the writing community (more like a friend, but one that I wouldn't have met without a writing community) Monday would have been a very frustrating night for me.

I am currently in the middle of planning a novel that I'm hoping to have finished the first draft of by the end of the month.  The book has one of the largest casts I've worked with, and one of the characters decided that Monday was the night he was finally going to start talking to me.  Unfortunately it was like he didn't realize just how loud it is in my head.  You may have noticed that I'm working on a few projects.  The characters from all of those books are always trying to get my attention.

Well, he managed to get my attention with a single stray thought.  That single thought managed to get me thinking about the different possibilities that could happen with this character.  Was he going to betray the main character?  Because that was the stray thought that managed to grab my attention.

Except that betraying her wasn't really in his character.  He may be an assassin, but I really didn't see him killing the girl that he trained as, basically, his replacement.  No matter how much I thought about it, though, whatever he was trying to tell me just wasn't getting through.  It was like we were on a call and all I could hear was static with a few words breaking through.  Then it suddenly felt like I lost the call altogether.

So I decided that I had to get some perspective.  That's where a good writing community really starts to come in handy.  With the help of some of my friends, who are also writers, I managed to figure out that the thought he was giving me wasn't at all what I originally thought it was.  I'm not going to post the solution I came up with, because I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.  After all, this book is going to end up getting published, and you're all going to buy and read it, right?

Through talking it out I managed to figure out a whole subplot, a twist, that I had no idea was there.  If they hadn't been there, I'm pretty sure I would have never figured it out.  Something would have always felt wrong, and most likely, my character would have stopped talking to me altogether.  Which is not something that I like to have happen.

Do you have a writing community that can help you work through the problems in your stories?  Or do you go it alone, a true lone wolf?

The Learning Curl

Did you know that Canada won the first ever World Curling Championship?  According to wikipedia this competition was held in Falkirk and Edinburgh in 1959.  In curling there's a team member called the 'Skip'.  Essentially the skip is the leader of the team.  They're the ones that plan out the strategies and tell the team how they need to play that round.  They wear two different shoes while they play.  One that has a grip, that they generally use to push off from the 'hack' when delivering a stone.  The other has no grip, which they use to slide on the ice during the delivery, or to slide down the ice while sweeping.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, I thought I would share all the knowledge I'm acquiring for my current novel.

You see, I happened to see a curling game last Saturday.  Not in person, or anything, it was just on tv.  The thing is, though, I've never been remotely interesting in curling.  I've heard it mentioned before, and I had the vaguest idea what they did during the game, but it wasn't something I cared about.  Or ever even had an interest in watching.  So why was I so very captivated by this game?

I let it slide, though, thinking that it was just a one time thing.  I cared only because it was on, and once it was out of sight it was out of mind.  Which was generally true.

Except that I kept seeing games everywhere I went.  This probably had a lot to do with the tournament of hearts being in full swing, but every time I saw it, I wanted to stop and watch.  It hit me when I was sitting in Denny's trying to pay to the conversation, and was instead being distracted by the curling game that was being shown on the tv: it was my character that was making me care about it.

My character (a female werewolf assassin, in case you were wondering) is, apparently, a curler.  She's one of those people I was watching going out on the ice and throwing stones.  Not professionally, of course.  But she definitely does this on her off time.

For me, that meant one thing: research.  I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan or research.  In fact, if I could avoid it altogether, I will, and I have in the past.  I write fantasy novels for the simple reason that the entire world comes from my head.  In other words, no research needed!

Now I'm stuck finding out more about a sport that I never cared about before (though after this is done, I might care just a little bit more) all so I can accurately depict a hobby that my character enjoys.

In the meantime, though, I thought that you all might enjoy it if I shared what I had learned so far about the not so well known sport.  Like the fact that the team with the last throw has what's called the 'hammer'.  It's an advantage in the game, making it easier for that team to score points.  If the other team manages to get points instead, that's called a steal.

Oh, the things we do for our characters.  I suppose I should consider myself lucky for not having researched anything that will have some unknown section of the government thinking I'm a terrorist or the like...yet...

What have you learned about for the sake of your characters?