Dear Writing Blog: Sorry I Was Gone So Long!

Hi again! I *finally* located my password to get back in here!!

I can't believe that I have been locked out of my own Blogspot blogs for so long now. But that's what happens when you have two Google email accounts and use an assortment of passwords. I have about 10 that I use here and there, and trying all the combinations took some time. I cracked the code today and almost jumped up and down! The good news, I don't think ANYone can hack into my blogs. My password turned out to be pretty elaborate.

Anyway, as this is my writin' blog, I might as well post an update:

To date, I have written 230 pages and I am on Chapter 15. The plot finally feels right, and action is moving along. I still worry I drag things out too much, but honestly the important thing right now is to JUST WRITE. Edit it later.

This story has to come out. There's no doubt about that! It's been percolating for so damn long I have no option but to purge it now. I have another book idea that's excellent and I want to make room in my brain for the attention that story requires. I don't want to half-ass it. I thought about writing two books at a time, but decided against it over the past month.

Some interesting things about "Zachary":
* I figured out why the Coalition would be doing this particular research in the first place: to develop a cure for diabetes. It's kind of complicated, but while reading up on dolphins and their immune systems, I stumbled upon an interesting fact: their bodies can 'create' a diabetic state while diving to keep metabolism going at certain depths, etc. And then, they can turn it off again and return to a 'normal' state. It's way more intricate than that, of course, but it did spark a moment of BRILLIANCE! Hee hee. Suddenly it made some sense. And, it led to me figuring out what Paul Spencer wants with Zachary.

* Zoe's in the story now, in a big way. In fact, she's changing all the time. I have written some wonderful new scenes between Zachary and Zoe (they hunt together; they fight--and I do mean FIGHT; they kiss, etc...) and she's becoming a fleshed out character the way she was always meant to. She's still a little unhinged, but she is more relatable now. I didn't want her to be The Crazy One. She plays an important role now, a role more nuanced and interesting than I'd ever envisioned. It's so cool seeing where this goes! I never know what I will end up writing when I sit down to do it.

* I'm not so sure about Clara anymore. And if and when she might appear. I'll just have to get there and see what happens.

* I found a picture that represents pretty well what I picture when I write about Dingo! So cute:



Regarding influences, here's some stuff that sparked my interest in relation to this book:

* Kyle XY. I watched the two seasons of this on Netflix in the space of a couple of weeks. I LOVED it! Honestly, I had no idea how good this show was when I ignored it years ago, when it was on TV. But it was great. It's a crime that it was cancelled in the middle of a freakin' season, but that aside, I found a lot of similarities to that story and "Zachary." I liked how that show approached some of the same issues I have been working on for "Zachary", and admired the creativity. The character of Jessie XX really charged me up! She had a lot of Zoe characteristics and I had such a great time watching that show and thinking-thinking-thinking about my own character. It was excellent, and it spurred a huge burst of new writing.

* "Lucy." This is a book by Laurence Gonzales, and when I read the review of it one morning last year, I almost choked on my cereal. Lucy is a hybrid. half-human, half-chimp. She looks mostly human. There's a whole plot of her trying to find where she fits in, realize what she is, and escape from people who want to hurt her. I bought the book the day it was released and read it over the course of three days. Happily, my book is different enough that I'm no longer paranoid that someone would think I was ripping-off "Lucy." That's my biggest fear: that someone thinks I only got the idea for "Zachary" after reading or watching something that's similar in theme, tone or plot. I learned a lesson, in all of my anxiety and panic: My story is and always will be MY STORY. I know what I am trying to say, and I can't be affected by other works that come out. I need to be confident in my own vision, voice and creativity, and forget about the other authors' stuff. No one can tell my story the unique way I will tell it, and that's the beginning and the end of that!

So, it has been an interesting year+. I hope that I can post some more updates again and get back to documenting my progress. Even though this blog is just for myself, and my own record-keeping regarding my writing, I do hope that anyone reading this can be helped by some of my inner experiences and all of this crap.

And that you won't steal my ideas! I will hunt ya down and kill ya dead if you do.

Kidding!

Kinda.

OK, not at all. Do not steal, period.

That's all for now! Back to work.

Just write and worry later!

I am not good at updating this thing, but in case I can't get to my "IFWT" file ever, I still want to have this handy so I keep track of what's going on. I want the process of writing this book to be documented!

Last week I found out some incredible news: Tom just got a contract to publish one of his book at Random House. This is a HUGE deal! I was stunned into absolute panic, I guess you could say! What?! How the...? What did he...? Why is HIS work...? BAH! Overall, though, I have to admit I am just plain happy for the guy. He isn't a bad writer at all, and all personal relationship crap aside, he was and is a friend I can go to for writing advice/ whining. So yeah, it's pretty cool.

And it did one other huge thing for me: LIT A FIRE under my own ass to just get Zachary finished already and get going!

My big problem is thinking, second-guessing, and not being able to just spit out that first, messy draft. I've been editing as I go and that has GOT to stop. No question in my mind. I am never, ever going to finish it if I do that! Why this lesson has taken so long to learn, I don't know, but... as Lisa M. put it when I shared Tom's news, "Now you have a nemesis!" and everyone knows that we all need our own nemesis in life; a person to be competitive with, a person you want to always do-one-better on. (That is a terrible sentence!) :)

So yes, maybe this is how it all had to happen. He had to get published so I would know about it and have it be the piano that fell out of the window and smashed the dull, draggy, thinking-writer right out of my skull. I needed this, and for that reason, I am so incredibly giddy-happy about what I'm doing next!

What's that? Just writing! That's it!

A first draft will be done soon. I refuse to say I haven't written it "yet." Nope. I am writing it RIGHT NOW. It's alive and it's happening.

The next time I update this blog, some amazing things will be reported regarding the story itself. You'll see, Self!

'Tis the Season...for Overthinking

I'm doing it again, ahhh!

I keep rethinking what I have already written and wanting to rewrite and edit heavily. I want to take out all the stupid stuff with him having some mysterious illness because I've changed my mind as to where the story is going next, and if I keep that, it's going to be a HUGE hindrance to me telling the story. So it's got to go. But do I just keep writing and act like it doesn't currently exist in the chapters already written, or do I go in, make the changes and THEN keep writing? Something tells me I should just GO, write new stuff and make the changes later on. (When I wrote Wounded Bird, I changed character's names halfway through the novel, but just kept going and figured I'd cross them all out later on at some point or use White-Out or something; I really knew what I was doing when I was young and inexperienced!)

Anyway, I want to write this weekend. Now that I have my work article finished my brain feels a little more relaxed, and not as 'guilty' spending time thinking about my book.

I really do have to just move ahead and keep going. I can't keep analyzing and criticizing everything I do. It's bad to do that! I know it! So how's about I stop doing it now?! Sounds like a plan.

The new Chapter 7

I finished it the other day and it came out pretty decent. I had to make it a "talky" chapter because some groundwork had to be laid for stuff going on later on in the book. I fought off my fear of leaning too heavily towards the "tell" end of the spectrum and not enough on the "show" side... I had to remind myself that even the best books have long stretches of explain-y dialogue sometimes. Nothing wrong with it once in awhile. I hope it actually works and I am not fooling myself.

It's been such a great week of writing. I've got some stuff for Chapter 8 already, too, and I did some editing so that Chapter 6 flows better into 7. I'm all inspired and wanting to just write this thing. I love Halloween, but I can't wait for the party to be over so I have a little more time to spend on it.

A new game to play: when I go out to eat, quickly figure out what my four main characters would order. What movie would each of them pick to see? What would their Halloween costumes be? What car would they drive if they could each have their dream car? Stuff like that. Just find a way to dive deeper into who they are as individuals by thinking of the everyday stuff.

Notes:
* Can Clara be morphed into the character of Zoe? I never thought it could work until this week... hmmm.
* Why is she there right now?
* What is her rank in the military?
* How much older is she?
* Is she interested or turned off by Zachary? Make it clear, very early in the chapter.
* Keep in mind why Jacob is upset following the incident at the cliff. (Now that I shared this URL with people, I will keep the details of this in my head for now so as to not blow a big spoiler.)
* Isaac Asimov. Orson Scott Card. HP Lovecraft. But no Charles Dickens...he hates it. :)
* The behind-the-scenes backstory of Dr. Bergen. Write it up even if it never appears in the book.

It's back

I wrote 3 pages of Chapter 7 tonight.

That is all.

:)

This thing still on?

I felt like I should log in here again-- because I am thinking that if I do, I will somehow get kicked into gear again and get this book written! I know I haven't written much...well, anything... in about two months and that blows. But I guess I can't beat myself up. Life kind of sucked this summer.

Anyway, I have still been thinking about things. And I have some new inspirations to draw on. One is "Fringe", the new JJ Abrams show that kicks ass. In particular, I have fallen in love with the character of Dr. Walter Bishop. I love the questionable nature of his experiments; his willingness to risk everything for his work; his sad past; his strange babblings and complicated-yet-simple (somehow, it works!) relationship with his son. I have to admit I started wondering about his son right away... did he create his son? Seems like it. I know that this past week, we learned what really happened and why he and his son are connected (spoiler: they were both dead at one point), but I still have fun drawing parallels to my own book and imagining what it could be like if Dr. Bergen was a little more lost in his work. I don't want to make a Walter Bishop clone, of course! But it does get me thinking about the eccentricities that would probably be par for the course with scientists working on unethical research, especially the ones that would die for what they created. Watching this show has made me realize that I have room to develop Dr. Bergen a little more than I have already. I probably SHOULD, actually! He's kind of an important character.

I've also been inspired by Hurley. It's strange, but he just invigorates my day and I feel connected to him in a very cool way. He's a fantastic dog with a near-perfect temperment and I swear, he never does anything bad. I love just rolling around with him, copying his "boxing" moves, talking to him and playing with him like I am a dog, too. I know, I know; by doing this, I am not exactly exerting my "master" status in the house. What kind of leader gets down on the floor and talks like a dog, too? Well, I guess I do. I know it because I still have the upper hand, and he obeys me and plays by all of my rules. It's just that we are friends, too. I can't explain it very well. I just think it gets my thoughts going in the direction of animal-human bonds and what they can mean on a very visceral level. I want to capture some of this friendship-feeling with some of Zachary's relationships with the animals in his life. What was Feem really like? How did he behave with her, and how did she show her affection and respect? Zachary, being what he is, would have deep connections and complicated relationships with the dolphins and hybrids.

Also-- why did I give him a dog? Was Dingo only a plot device for that first chapter? Sometimes I wonder about that. I think there can be something more to that particular relationship, too. Dingo appears to be the only non-cetacean and non-hybrid animal on the base. Why did they give him a dog? Did Zachary choose him? What's the backstory? What does Dingo do that makes Zachary happy, and does he do anything or have quirks that Zachary tolerates but doesn't like? There's no reason not to add a little more of ME to the book, and doing it through the animal relationship descriptions is probably a very natural way for me to do it.

So, the point of all of this is: I have to write again. VERY soon.

I will!

Because there's another thing to consider: I don't really want to be a business magazine writer for the rest of my life. I want a fiction-writer career. I let myself gloss over that dream, thinking I don't deserve it for some strange reason (stupid, stupid low self-esteem issues!) or that it is out of my reach. I've been learning so much about myself these days, and that kind of thinking needs to be unacceptable, going forward. I don't suck as a writer, or as a person. I'm...not that bad. And you know what else? This book is not that bad, too.

A cliffhanger! (For reals, though)

OK, well, I've been working on it. That's the GREAT news.

The not-so-great news is some of my work has been way off course. I was reworking the chapters, cutting things in half to create whole other chapters, moving text around, blah blah... and then as I was writing new stuff for the end of Chapter 6, I let the story take a dark, morbid turn. I had Zachary lock himself in a bathroom and slice open his forearm with a razor. Not just a slice. No, I made it gory and...WRONG.

It bugged me after I wrote it. I kept thinking about it and feeling depressed. Which is not helpful when you are already going through real depression in real life! But it was more than that; this was a departure for his character. It wasn't fitting in with the person I see him as (and yes, I do see him as a person, even if he doesn't!), since I think he's stronger and more self-confident than that. He wouldn't take a coward way out of things just because he was stressed out. Nah.

He'd rip shit out of the walls, smash it with sonar and destroy the implant activator before taking off and scaling a barbed wire fence to run to the cliff...

Yeah. THAT'S more like it. That's my boy.

So anyway, I am coming back. It's just about finished, that cool Chapter 6, and I can't wait to write a little bridging text to pull it into Chapter 7 and what it can be before I move the story along like it needs to.

It was scary losing it for a minute there. But I learned a lot from it, so it wasn't totally a lost cause, I guess. I learned what Zachary is NOT. And I am saving every word I write and cut in a separate file, because I don't know what could come back into play or be handy in some way down the road.

I'm going to Chicago in two days. With a laptop. I admit I'm hoping for a repeat of how productive I was on the last trip to Washington DC, when I wrote like a fiend. It seems like traveling alone, being focused on my own thoughts (and by default, that means the book) is really GREAT for me. Funny that I love being away that much. Or maybe it's not that funny. Either way... whatever works is what I want to do!