So Many Men, So Little Time

Now that The Price of Surrender is just about at ARC stage, I have many male characters vying for my attention. It is very hard to choose, creatively. Each of them or each pair of them is attractive to write. There is my very demanding Vampire, Simon Molinar and Joe McKay, his captive/lover/nemisis from 'Demon Under Glass.' Being centuries old makes the Vampire arrogant. He is very tired of the heroic men from the Hanyanoore, my fantasy realm. Then there are Nick Jordan and CJ Hague, My gay cop duo. I have been giving them the short end for a long while and there is very good reason to finish that novel soon. There is a gunslinging desparado from the old west that may have to have his story told before the next spring. And surpsingly and out of the blue, a character inspired by and actor who was the main horseman for Rohan and a pirate of my own creation has formed to be the love interest for a lass who was a baby in my last book.

For the prize this week which will be a print version of The Price of Surrender and a promotional magnet. To win, tell me who the actor is that was that Horseman of Rohan and a pirate character of mine.

But which hero to choose for the next book? Unfortuantely or fortunately, depending on the view, I cannot let my muse decide. Market forces will choose the next novel I address because the books will be tied to films we're developing. It makes the most sense for my career as an author to take advantage of that opportunity.

So, how does a writer finish a book that may not be where her muse wants to be? Practice. I was lucky to have gone to journalism school and then grad school in creative writing, so I had the notion of writing only what I felt moved to write pretty well beaten out of me. To keep my fellowship in grad school, I had to do a chapter a week of my thesis novel and write a short story a week for my workshop classes. I had to learn how to use structure of plots and biographies of characters to keep my prose developing even when the muse wasn't speaking. More often than not, when I got far enough along in the development, the characters came to life and I could hear them speaking to each other. This took a lot of practice.

There is a script for both the gay cop novel and the gunslinger. However, the cop novel is the story of how they met, not what is in the script. That novel will take a lot more active development. It's also going to be a lot of fun, because it will have more sex than the film will. In the end, I believe I'll be writing both. work on one then take a break by working on the other. They are both really active projects, so that's where I have to focus. I'll be thingking about my vampire and Princess Kirsi's as yet unnamed lover all the while, to be sure.

For hints on some of what the heck I'm talking about, got to:

http://dragoncor.com and http://themiddlebox.com

Sorry this blog is so short. I wrote one for sybpress.com about poetry and potato salad. You can read that at: http://sybpress.blogspot.com/ and I'm in pre-prodcution on a film. Oddly enough, not any of the ones I've talked about tonight. But that's another long story involving yet a thrid blog that is not yet public. Stay tuned.