My apologies for flaking out a bit last
week. I confess to having been super grumpy. I was also really
restricting distractions while I finished the last chapters of the
book. I was using every possible distraction as an excuse to walk
away from wrestling with the ending. I even cleaned the oven, for
goodness sake! The oven! I have often said to new writers without the
funds or the time to go to a writing program that they don't need a
degree to be a writer. I say that with even more vehemence if it
happens that I am having a flashback of some pompous dullard reading
from an opus about a writer writing about writers writing. Or the
endless and allegedly deep discussions on whether or not a writer
needs to tell a story – can't they find a way to have a reader not
read but sense the story on some subconscious level? Wow, those
memories STILL make me want to punch someone in the face twenty years
after grad school! Jon is pointing out that I'm still bitter. Ah,
well. Where was I?
Deb vs Random Shiny Objects
I was going to make a point about the
main thing that the Creative Writing Program gave me – hard
deadlines. I knew I had to have a completed story and a chapter of a
book finished each week to distribute for feedback. And I knew that
at the end of the program, I had to have a completed novel. That
really makes for a disciplined – though often freaked out –
writer. I have a lot of time on my hands, and I do try to keep my
days well structured. But the lack of a hard deadline or an editor to
breathe down my neck makes it very easy to get distracted. There are
a lot of diversions even in our modest household. There are two
cooking channels and more cooking on PBS. There is way too much on
the internet that is a distraction. Aside from the feeds on the
social networks, there are places where I can watch every episode of Starsky and Hutch
or all the episodes of Midsomer Murders
I missed when it stopped airing in the US. This was bad before I
discovered the sites where I can catch up on anime I've never seen or
manga I haven't read. Bad all bad. Toward the end of the book, I had
managed to filter out all of the obvious distractions because they
made me feel really guilty. That's when I turned to 'practical'
distractions like sorting through the ponderous pile of medical
records, putting those crates of photos into albums like I always
planned to do, or cleaning the oven. And let's not forget all of the
cooking. Only some of that was necessary.
But wait, didn't I turn in a feature
script draft from concept to finished draft in a couple of weeks? I
had a few people breathing down my neck including a co-producer and
an actor. It's hard to ignore them when they can tell you're
online...or know where you live...or have keys to your house. That
wasn't a good idea. I have an update on that film later in the blog.
Maybe I should find an editor like Ailawa-san, my favorite editor in
anime. She is known for busting into a writer's home and beating the
story out of him.
What's the issue? This is one of my
naughty books, after all. How difficult could it be to throw a couple
together and let nature take its course over and over for pages on
end? Well, I never just throw together anything. Even my fanfiction
was some sort of exercise about character arcs or writing styles or
genre themes. In this case, the basic problem was that I knew the
book would be the first of at least a trilogy. Thus, one of the
problems was how to give it a satisfying ending while it was clear
that the story of the couple would continue on. There has to be an
obstacle for them to overcome at the end that will compel the reader
to read the next installment while not leaving them on a cliffhanger.
That really ticks me off as a reader of books and a viewer of films.
I finally decided to go with what I like doing with romances, the
story ends shortly after the couple figures out their relationship.
From that point forward, only death will tear them apart. That does
not mean that their adventures are over or the incredible danger to
them has passed, but as a couple, they are a solid union. There are
no spoilers to the story here. In my romances, it is the wild ride
the couple takes and whether they survive it that keeps my gentle
readers on the edge of their seats not whether or not the couple
stays together.
My couple's arc finishes after one
final and serious threat to their lives. It is clear that there are
still gravely important tasks yet undone. There is still a
significant threats to their lives ahead. Thus, I'm fairly certain my
readers will want to continue to follow their story. But I hate when
there isn't a satisfactory amount of denouement. Aside from the
couple, there are some supporting characters who have endured a great
deal of suffering. They each need a moment or two to gather
themselves for the next ordeal. In other words, I believe the book
needs a little time like the end of Star Wars where the characters
are being hailed by the rebels as heroes and perhaps wear really
bitchin' boots. Okay, I know what I should be writing to wrap this
up, but there was still a problem. I had gotten hung up on the book's
length. It's the longest book I've written in one fell swoop at over
180,000 words or 375 pages in standard prose format. It took me a
while to get over that. I was looking at the competition whose books
are considerably shorter. I needed to realize that there are still a
number of successful books that aren't sparse in their prose. I'm
mean, this is still less than half as long as the later Harry Potter
novels. And I don't waste pages describing every piece of furniture
in a room or every eyelash on a lid. There is a lot of action in the
plot and a whole heaping helping of white hot naughtiness! After
slapping myself around, I finished Ensnared. At least, I finished the
draft. I have to leave it alone for a few days. Then, I'll adjust
some things before sending it to the proofreaders. I'll have excerpts
and the incredible cover artwork up in a couple of weeks. Now, I can chase shiny
object with less guilt.
Updates
Octodemon has been put on a back burner
for a while. The original plan for shooting it was to wait for lulls
in the schedule at Central City Studio which is owned by one of the
producers of the film, Lucy Doty. Well, there have been no real lulls
in the schedule there. In fact, the place has been crazy busy. It
even had the new Batman there last week. It's fabulous for the studio
but not so great for the film. Things will slow down everywhere late
in the year. We're going to look at the schedule again in a couple of
months and figure out what is doable. There are still plans in the
works to do the Demon Under Glass and Blood Oath web series. And a
film that I very much wanted to do (and came close to getting green
lit more than once) is seeing new life. It's very early, but it looks
promising.
Next week – More on the books and
films. I'll also discuss why Craig, Jon and I have nearly unreadable
fingerprints and why that could be terrifying.
Stay tuned.
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