A M Song

About a year ago, a gentleman of my acquaintance told me that my stories remind him of the writings of Orson Scott Card. "That's great!" I said. "Who's he?" He then told me that Mr Card is one of his favorite scifi authors. That, in and of itself, is rather flattering-- to the point where I ran out the next day and purchased a copy of what is probably Card's most famous novel-- Ender's Game.

That was last year. A few days ago, I was finally able to put down my romance novels long enough to devour Ender's Game.

Oh. My. Gods.

Wow, what a good book.

And I'm more flattered than ever that I was compared to this.

So, as I sat in the break room, chewing on the ending, feeling the triumphs and despairs of Ender, I started wondering what specifically I (or others) see of my style in this book, and one of the first things to hit me was this:

I don't know what any of his characters look like. Beyond general descriptions, like "sweet" and "small" or "old" and "fat," there was nothing but the character's actions and dialog to paint the mental picture of who these people were. There was no hair color, no eye color, no strong cheek bones or aquiline noses (whatever the frack that is).

But I do know how each of the characters feel, who they are as people, and what they're capable of.

I used to worry that my writing is not visual enough, that people need Know what their characters look like. And perhaps that is important for Romance stories-- but when you get into the realm of distilled humanity, which is what scifi is really about-- at least to me-- what they look like doesn't matter nearly as much as what they do and why. At least not to Orson Scott Card, whom I now admire greatly.

Wow.

Now, not only am I flattered, but in yet another way, I feel like I've been freed up-- as if the reading public has in some way given their go-ahead for my feel for writing, that the action and dialogue can allow you to form your own visuals.

Sweet. I'm totally excited.

Peace.

People keep asking me how the writing is coming along, and for the last 6 months, the answer has been the same: “I haven't looked at it in ages. No time.” Well, today I got tired of not having time. I'm making time. I just miss it.

Some people compare writing to breathing. Not me. I can survive without writing. But I miss it, like a good friend on the other side of the country. And thankfully, it doesn't cost much of anything to pick up the pen and get going again. (Whereas flying across said country can be a bit pricey.)

So, I've picked up my pen again. The problem is, it's been so many months since I've looked at my scifi novel, I can't read half the notes I left for myself, because I used a short-hand that made sense at the time. Dammit, I HATE it when I do that. LOL It's okay, though. I'll figure it out. I just have to reimmerse myself in the world.

And I miss my romance novel too. That one scares me a bit-- now that the rough (and I do mean ROUGH) draft is done, it needs to be completely overhauled. It's intimidating. I mean, I'm very proud of myself that I completed a 50,000+ word manuscript with a beginning, middle and end. Now I know I can finish something I started. And I'm grateful for the whole process of writing it out, because I learned a lot about how not to write a novel-- LOL. I'm just bummed, because even though it has a beginning, middle and end, it's crap and needs a full overhaul. I still like the story, I like the idea, and I'd like someday to get it to a point where I can show it to other people and say, “See? THIS is what I was working on.” I'm just going to have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, building off of what I learned the first time around, and THAT'S what's intimidating me. I basically have to write another novel.

Then again, I've done it once, so I know I can do it again. :)

Okay, enough ramblings. I'm off to work, dragging my scifi manuscript with me. LOL

Peace.

Oy. Ya know, Pirates of Penzance is not the best background music for writing. It's that Ta-rum-ta-ra the boys sing. Those deep voices give me chills, and then I start listening to the lyrics and giggling, and that's just bad for concentrating on other things. aHEM.

I've started developing a new story, even though my last one isn't finished yet and the novel hasn't been edited yet. What surprises me is how mainstream-ish it's going to be. One of the main characters will be gay, but the genre won't be romance. I'm actually going to write a -blink- science fiction story. Heh. I never expected to be gripped by a story like this, but there ya go. I gotta follow the muse when she whaps me over the head with a wet noodle. Otherwise, I have found she takes her noodles elsewhere, and I'm left with an empty spaghetti pot.

Since it's going to require a BUNCH of world building, I'm going to take this story really, really slow. I've decided to use it as something to turn to when my projects du jour (you know—the ones with sex in them) give me trouble.

My weekly writing group gives out prompts for us to work with during the week. I can use the prompts to write a snippet to help me develop the world. All the snippets will take place before anything in the actual story, so that I'll have a greater feel for this place without having to worry about plot points. Once I do have a feel for it all, then I'll get into character sheets, plotting and all that good stuff.

I have a feeling it's going to be incredibly complicated for me to plot. My first novel was mostly internal—one character interacting with stuff as it pops up. It was about his growth as a person, so while I did have to know what everyone else was doing, it was sort of vague. This new one will have two opposing forces trying to outwit each other. I will have to be far more specific in my understanding of every little detail. But for now, I'm just enjoying the dabbling without any pressure.

And I can finally say that Coming Home is coming along. 9K words out of a potential 10-12K. Squee! Oddly enough, I was thinking about Brokeback Mountain and Stargate Atlantis at the same time when it hit me how to break my latest block. -snickers- Yay for men kissing! I swear, I don't understand what happened with this story, why it's taking me so long to “slam” it out.

Well, everything was (finally) moving along smoothly … and then tragedy hit. I got my monthly, which automatically stopped me from writing—especially anything with sex. I guess it'll be waiting for me when my wacky hormones decide I can write again, but it was a little frustrating. Bizarre, but that's how it works for me. One week out of the month no fiction gets produced.

Luckily, it doesn't affect all of my creativity, just the fiction. Since I haven't been writing, I've put in work on www.nightshadetearoom.com. The writers' pages have been up for a while, but this week I got the first of the resources pages posted—Submissions Guidelines. There's more I want to add there. I can feel it in my fingertips, but I haven't found it yet. Eh. I'm sure my fingertips will figure it out soon.

And since it is my monthly time, I've been making icons. Or, icon bases, I guess. But they're all about the chocolate. >:D It's the the framing aspects of making icons I really enjoy. I just don't know Photochop well enough to do all the cool color, brush and arTIStic sparkly stuffs other icon makers do. Still, it amuses me.

Well, there it is. My weekly update.

Hope y'all are doing well.

AMS

PS Samples (Feel free to yoink, no credit necessary.)

I don't think I've posted here in three weeks. THREE WEEKS! It's not that surprising, really. I took a weekend to visit some friends at the beginning of the month, and when I got back, my motivation bottomed out. I think my transmission must be shot or something.

Part of it is intimidation. I've got a couple scenes in the short story that I'm “working” on that I've never really experienced at all. One is where one of the hero comes home to find his house being robbed by a couple of junkies. The other is the fallout from that confrontation. For some reason, sitting down to write both those scenes—SCENES! Not even stories, but just scenes—has scared me so bad it's taken me THREE WEEKS to get them down.

I'm having trouble figuring out how it would go down. I mean, sheesh. I lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, but really didn't interact with junkies at all. Weird, I know, because from the outside, you'd think everyone in LA is on one drug or another. But most folks in my circle were—well, nobody in my circle is what you'd call NORMAL—but certainly not vice- and violence-oriented. So a big part of me is thinking, “You have absolutely NO IDEA what a confrontation with meth-heads would be like. Therefore, anything you write will automatically be inaccurate and stupid.”

And I know the solution. Just push through it. If it's awful, I can always fix it in editing, and no one will be the wiser. It's just … I haven't done that yet.

Instead, I've been hiding from my story. I've taken up sewing again (which conveniently uses the fingers for not-typing activities) and started watching more TV than I've seen the rest of the year combined. I haven't even been productive in my hiding. No reading even. Movies and TV. (I did finally get my copy of Brokeback Mountain, though. Squee! for that.)

And I'm noticing a correlation here. No writing on LJ about writing = no writing. Hmmm. So, here I am, writing on LJ and trying to kick my story back into gear.

All of that was just to say, “Sorry I've been gone so long. I'm back now.”

Shiny: I'm thinking about changing my pen name. It doesn't really matter professionally, as yet, because I haven't submitted anywhere. Mebbe just something more … hmmm. I dunno. Need a different name, is all. /Shiny

Grr. I was really hoping to have this story done before Friday when I meet up with the Nightshade Tearoom. And by “done,” I mean rough draft and first draft complete and ready for analysis. I was really aiming for that, but all this STUFF keeps coming up. ( Me ranting about STUFF )

6,300 / 12,000 (52.5%)

Yay! for friends who are willing to listen to your crazy story ideas and offer solutions. They asked the best questions, and I am back on track. I did have to do a bit of editing for my opening. In order to get a final outcome that I wanted, I had to change the plot a bit. In order to have the characters believably doing some of the things in the newfangled plot, I ended up changing details about the characters. Luckily, I hadn't written too much before all of this came up, so there was very little to edit (as compared to say, a whole friggin' novel).

All in all, I've got 2600 words done now, where everything is up to date. Woot! Not sure if I can keep this puppy at 10K words, though. I'm thinking it'll end up somewhere between 10 and 20K. That's still in the realm of “short story,” though, right?

Vaguely tempted to post a snippet, but I haven't written a sex scene as yet. Would folks be interested in reading an intro to characters, or should I just wait until I get to “the good stuff?”

Dammit! This is what I get for saying click, click, click. I started on my short story, Coming Home, but before I got too far in, I realized that my planned resolution was unsatisfying. In other words, it didn't resolve the conflicts I had introduced at the beginning. Problem is, now that I've figured out how to resolve the conflicts, I can't figure out how to get the boys together on any basis more permanent than a two week hook up. ARGH!

Well, I suppose I could figure out something, but then I think I'll be moving out of “short story” range, and on into “novella” length. I had really hoped to slam out a short little thing. This is turning out to be ... more of a challenge than I expected.

I've got just over 2K words written. Hopefully I won't have to change too much of it to fit into the new plot line. -sigh-

While taking a break from the novel, I decided that I should get a short story written and published-- or at least ready to publish-- so that I'm still keeping busy. The original plan had been to pick up a story I had started back in Cleveland, but the problem with that story is that I never made a plot outline. Great characters introduced, but all they did was sit there waiting for something to do. -sigh- So, the original plan was to try to rescue that story. Except I was having trouble maintaining the original tone while trying to get it punched out with the plot I had produced. Finally, I just put that one aside again and decided to start a new one from scratch.

YIPPEE! I'm so glad I did. Before I started plotting, I concentrated on developing the characters, instead of assuming that they'd just “come to me” like I did with the novel. This time they're much stronger, because I have a focus. I didn't sit down and write their whole bios or anything, just a few characteristics and “where they're coming from and where they're going” type stuff. Once that was done, I got the whole thing plotted out and have about 1K words typed up so far. The most exciting part of that, though, is that as I'm finding plot holes, the answers ARE just coming to me. Click, click, click! It's just coming together so neatly. I'm very excited.

And now for something completely different. I've figured out the title for my memoirs, if/when I ever get around to writing them. Normally I don't post much of my RL in this journal, but I just wanted to share this with you guys because it cracked me up.

First, a bit of back story: I'm currently living with my grandpa, whom I call Pop. I'm staying with him because he's getting senile and I needed a cheap place to stay after failing to make a go of it in Edinburgh. It's a pretty good arrangement for the both of us, because he's got someone around who can tell him he's already taken his meds today, I've got a free place to stay until I can get my head straight, and we both have family nearby. -Sigh- Family is a very good thing.

Anyway, while I was doing all that plotting and planning on my new story today, my grandpa decided it was 3:00 in the morning and way past his bedtime. I kept trying to tell him it was afternoon, but he brushed me off. “Well, then I'll just take a nap,” he said, “in bed, with my pajamas. Let me just go take my teeth out.”

Buddy, if it's that important to you, go to bed. No skin off my ass.

Around 5:00, Daddy called for his daily check-in. He didn't actually get to talk to Pop, though, because while Pop shouted “Hello” a lot, I think he forgot to say it into the receiver. -sigh-

Apparently, though, that was his good-morning-wakeup call. Out of bed he shot, chipper as can be. He went into the bathroom, and all of a sudden I heard a buzzing that sounded suspiciously like my electric toothbrush-- the one I had hidden because Pop had already commandeered my regular toothbrush for heavens know what. So, I just sort of wandered past the bathroom door, which was wide open, and saw that he was not using my toothbrush after all, but his electric razor. On his ear.

“POP! That's not a hair. Those are your stitches. Don't shave that.”

“But there's a hair there, and it's sticking up.”

“Yeah, it's sticking up, because you already pulled one of the stitches. Now leave it alone.”

“Okay. Right after I get rid of this hair that's sticking up.”

I ran and got the scissors and cut the damn string short, and he was happy.

And that's how I figured out the title of my memoirs: Yeah, But At Least It Was Funny.

I was going to try for some witty wrestling metaphor, but I just couldn't make it work. I think my wit is temporarily out of order. But that's okay, because I did it.

The rough draft of Down the Happy Trail is done. 52,420 words at final count. That is not only the longest story I've ever completed, it's by far the longest story I've ever attempted.

Wow. I did it.

Okay, it needs some major rewrites. Subplots need to be more developed, secondary characters could be fleshed out a bit more, and I need to do some serious world building. And it could use a stronger closing. But the structure is there. Have I mentioned, “Wow, I did it?”

I'm sure for most of you finishing a novel is no big at this point. Most of y'all are freaking prolific and terrific writers. But this is pretty huge for me. There was a time that I thought I'd never finish anything I had started to write. I can't believe I just wrote a novel.

This definitely calls for ice cream.

Well, it's almost 4:00 in the morning, and the durn story still isn't finished. That sex scene took up a bit more space than I expected. -snickers- I figure I've got another 1 or 2 K words left to go, just to wrap things up.

BUT today, I finally hit my goal.

50,015 / 50,000 (100.0%)

Okay, and now to keep myself motivated: however many more words it takes me is what I'll do, BUT, I will get to The End before this weekend is out. Preferably before Sunday, but we'll see what happens. -nods- That's my new goal.

I actually typed the last word as my computer announced it was midnight. Heh.

And I have to admit, I've impressed myself. I did 2k in two hours. With bathroom breaks. Okay, it's not the greatest prose EVER-- at all-- but it's down and done. I'll revise later.

46,000 / 50,000 (92.0%)

I'm in the home stretch...

44,046 / 50,000 (88.1%)

I'm so close I can taste it. I'm at 42K words as of tonight. That's 8K from my goal of 50K. Actually, I may run out of story before I hit 50, but for now I think that's okay. I have a feeling that in my next round, I'm going to be adding a bit of material.

( More of my writing ranting... )

So here it is. A completely reasonable get-the-damn-rough-draft-done date: Friday, August 10 (or the wee hours of Saturday, which still counts as Friday in my head).

OMG! I've got work to do. What the hell am I doing screwing around on LJ?

41,948 / 50,000 (83.9%)

Ha ha! I am triumphant. Playing catch-up is done. I've officially got +37K words typed up of my rough draft.

37,711 / 50,000 (75.4%)

Did you hear that? ( That was the sound of... )

Peace.

Well, here I am, back in the States. Got in last Sunday and spent my birthday with my (maternal) Grandma in New York City. That was fun: We went to a revolving restaurant called The View at the top of the Marriot Marquis just above Times Square and then saw a dance performance by a troupe called Pilobolus. Oh, now that was nice. Hot, dancing men wearing barely anything at all-- if that. What a great way to spend a birthday!

( More rambling on my travels and writing-- Cut for length. )

All in all, I'd say that these last two weeks have been rough, but very necessary. Somehow, I feel like a door just unlocked, and all I have to do is figure out which door it is. Kind of exciting, really.

25,247 / 50,000 (50.0%)

Ah, procrastination, thy name is Anna Marie. *sigh*

I don't understand myself sometimes. Here I've got this awesome story-- something that has me interested and excited to write, and I've got it all mapped out, so I won't get lost on the way. So why don't I feel like working on it? Grrr. Actually, I have noticed that I'm far more inclined to work on it at certain times of the month, and historically this is more of a trough period than a peak. How weird is that? Even my WRITING is hormonal.

Example: Today I wrote about a half a page (by hand) before my chair was too uncomfortable and 1984 called to me too loudly to ignore. (I'm finally reading it for the first time. Creepy!) So yet again, I got almost nothing done on my own book, but I was more than happy to plow through other people's stuff.

As I dragged myself to the Internet cafe today, I decided that I could at least work on something that never actually made it into the opening of my rough draft-- a description of my main female character, Robin. Heh. I guess since no one else in the book found her looks important one way or the other, I hadn't either. I don't know why I went with first person here-- the book is in third. It's just what flowed, and at least this way I feel mildly productive.( Introducing Robin )

I was wondering if someone would be able to help me out. I wrote a short movie review and need a beta.

Information I'm looking for:
1. Spelling mistakes (I ran spellcheck, so I'm now looking for homophones and such)
2. Grammar mistakes
3. Awkward phrasing/anything that doesn't make sense
4. Any information that may have been left out

If you can help out on all fronts in the next couple of days or so, please let me know.

Many thanks!

This morning as I was getting ready for the day, instead of listening to the flirty ditzes in my hostel making noises that I swear only teenage bimbos can make (you know what I mean), I set the iPod to The Kissy Bits, which is a podcast about writing romance. Terrific stuff. I highly recommend the show to any writer... who writes even something with just an aspect of romance in it. The cast is very informative (for me, though I think it'll still spark some thought even for those more seasoned than me) and fun.

ANYway, there I was, listening to Kiki talking about writing a First Kiss, which is really hard. I mean, anyone can write about kissing-- lips smooshed together, toes curling, fireworks, blah blah. But to write it well, so that people are invested in it-- that's hard. For me anyway.

So, as I was listening, my brain started multi-tasking and I realized the first kiss in my novel is crap. CRRRRAP! (It's a rough draft, so I'm not worried about it just yet. I'm just saying this is what is.) I figured, since I was inspired today, not only was I going to rewrite my First Kiss, keeping in mind the things Kiki was talking about, I was going to issue a challenge to my writing group to do the same. Well, I mean, for them to do an exercise writing a first kiss, trying to keep in mind some of the things she was talking about. They'll have to have their own characters, though. Mine are spoken for. *hugs characters close and glares at anyone who tries to touch them*

Yes, well. Here it is. I had to go back to the beginning of the scene so that it would all flow together. Also, it helps to know the characters a BIT so you care what's happening, don't you think?

Um, let me see. This is unbetaed. (Unbeta'd? Unbetad? How do you SPELL that?) So, there are probably a few out and out mistakes floating around. If it doesn't make sense, or if my guys are too girly, PLEASE let me know. How else will I get better if I don't receive criticism? :)
~*~*~*~*~
Snippet from Down the Pleasure Trail
by Anna Marie Song
WARNINGS: M/M
~*~*~*~*~
( Cut for length and because not everyone wants to read about boys kissing. But then again, if you don't want to read that, what on the gods' green earth are you doing looking at MY page? )

Well, there it is. As I said, comments, criticism, corrections, recipes-- it's all welcome. Invited. Guest of honor.

Yeah, it's been a long day.

Peace.

So, I've been clomping around Edinburgh, trying to find a job to pay the bills and an apartment to protect my head during inclement weather (there's enough here that this warrants concern) with absolutely no luck. As a result, I haven't had nearly as much "touristy" time as I would have thought. Anyway, after a lot of long heart-to-hearts with my dad, I came to the conclusion that until I have a work visa, I really can't afford to stay here, since no one's willing to hire me. (Why don't I have a work visa? That's a long and embarrassing story. Maybe I'll go into it some other time.)

The long and short of it is that I'll be returning to the States, tail tucked firmly between my legs, in the next couple of weeks. My grandfather's offered me a place to stay (and a car to drive!!!) while I get my head straight, and it's just too good an offer to turn down.

Since I finally made The Decision, it's opened up all this extra time. No longer running around like the proverbial chicken minus a head. So what have I done? Well, I went to Holyrood Park and read, followed by a trip to Holyrood Palace's cafe where I wrote smut for a couple hours. Except I kept wondering if it was inappropriate to be writing smut in the palace cafe. But finally, I decided that A) she's a queen, not a virgin and B) I'm writing about queens, which is appropriate for a palace, right? =D Um, yeah. That didn't convince me, either. I only wrote a page there. I wrote in my crappy hostel bed a lot. I went to the pub and wrote. Oh! I read in the pub too. (Lawrence Block is a lot of fun.) Took a class in Reiki. You know. Touristy stuff. *snort*

I've managed to lose track of how many pages total I've written while I was here, but I know today alone I got a good four pages handwritten. And yesterday was three. It's been pretty exciting, actually. Death, heartbreak, and a possible redemption!

Well, tomorrow I'm off to go visit Nessie. At least I'm doing SOMETHING touristy. Heh.

Wow. Okay. I'm realy nervous about this, but here goes. Yesterday a friend issued a challenge to our writing group (mostly Harry Potter fanfic, but original stuff is welcome too) to send two characters on a cruise. Length wasn't important. I wanted to get to know the characters from my novel a little better, so I figured this would be a fun way to do that. Sat down in a cafe for a bit and wrote it all out. :)

This is the first bit of work I've done that I even feel vaguely confident shouldn't be destroyed immediately. Anyway, I would LOVE feedback, if y'all care to take the time (even if you think it should be destroyed immediately.)

Cheers,

Anna Marie



( What To Do When Sea Serpents Attack )