When I first started writing, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I use certain words as a crutch. All writers do this to a degree – we have a certain “style” of writing, a way we paint scenes or arrange words, a character trait or flaw that we give our protagonists or a repetitive theme (like VC Andrews and incest….wince).  It’s not always a bad thing, until there’s too much of it.

Case in point: when I went back to edit my first book, I started noticing that I used the phrase “a bit” a whole awful lot. I mean, an AWFUL awful lot. She wasn’t just scared, she was “a bit scared.” He wasn’t just wary, he was “a bit wary.” It was all over the place! I finally decided (since I use Word when I write) to use the “find” feature and search out the phrase. In the first six chapters alone, I used the phrase “a bit” fourteen times! Ugh. Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned before that I “cast” my novels in my head before I write them. This helps me stay on point and keep the characters true to themselves. So I might think they look like whatever celebrity but they have the personality of that guy from college that I always wish I had dated or maybe they’re like a mix between this tv show character’s personality and that movie star’s looks.

So I get that far, and then I have to start going deeper – what really makes them tick? This is where I start really fleshing them out. I found these guidelines on a forum board a long time ago –  I Googled them to try to find a source but they’re all over the internet and for good cause. This is what they call  the story circle – this will get you where you need to go: Continue reading →

I don’t work well with music.

Well, not writing, anyway. Or the work at the day job. I can’t listen to music and get a damn thing done. I envy my coworkers, tapping away at their keyboards with their earbuds in, heads bobbing, passing the day in a blur.

I envy Stephanie Myers who can publish a soundtrack for her books (and then take a wheelbarrow of cash to the bank).

And if I have to do work that doesn’t involve my brain much, like cleaning a kitchen or folding laundry or cooking, I’ve got my reggae music blasting in the background and I’m hugely more productive for it. But if I sit down to write….I need to keep my ever-distracted brain on a leash, or it won’t get done.

If I’m listening to music I love, I’ll be singing along. Loudly. I’ll get so wrapped up in the music, I won’t be paying much attention to the task at hand. I lose my train of thought every time a great song swells into its chorus, or that glory note approaches.

Just one of the drawbacks of having a degree in Theatre with a minor in music, at least when it comes to discipline and writing, two words I don’t put together often enough.

Do you listen to music when you write? Do you think it helps you?

I mentioned on Tuesday that I had to cut a chunk of stuff out of my latest book and throw it into my slush file.

My slush file is just a Word document that I’ve titled “Slush File” and I throw stuff in there that I liked well enough but maybe it didn’t work in the context of the story I was writing. Maybe it was a sex scene, or an argument, or a description of sunlight on somebody’s hair…who knows. It means it’s good enough to keep but not right to use with this particular project.

I revisit that file every single time I write a story, because you never know how it might inspire you. I’ve had two or three rough sentences become a kernel of an idea that expanded into a great scene within a chapter. I’ve hit writer’s block and pulled a chunk from that file to fill in and moved on, then came back later and reworked it into something much better after some time away.

I also keep a running slush file for each book in particular. That one I’ll call “overflow” and it contains scenes specific to those characters or that story line, but maybe they felt disjointed where I put them or didn’t have the right context around them. I either use them again someplace else, or at the end of the writing process for that book, I copy the unused pieces over to the slush file.

It’s a never-ending process, and quite frankly, my brain can’t hold it all. That’s where the slush file takes over.

And that slush leaves more room for the mush in my brain.

Right now, I am swimming – swimming, I tells ya – in ideas for novels. Like, enough novels to keep me busy for the next year at least. But then what?

What if I can’t come up with the next thing?

What if I lose my mojo and just can’t do it anymore?

I worry about that! I honestly do. What if I fall in love with some guy and I’m so happy and fulfilled that I don’t know how to write angst and tension and horny people.

Okay, you never really forget how to be horny, I guess. But still….

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, and then I sit up in bed, pull out the laptop and lull myself to sleep with the tapping of the keyboard as stuff spills out of my brain.

Then I read it over the next day and think “WTF did I write at 2am?”

And so the cycle continues…