The muse is bullshit. Yeah, I know, I just shot a sacred cow. And what a way for me to re-enter my blog after a bit of a hiatus (was busy...writing. Heh I know, shocking)

The muse is a nice idea. It's a romantic metaphor, but too many people start to believe in it as some kind of literal immutable reality. “My muse isn't here today.” “I can't write when I don't feel inspiration.” blah blah blah. Bullshit.
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This post is inspired from a discussion on a yahoo group I'm involved in right now. When speaking of things like "Voice" there can be some VERY big differences of opinion.
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I forgot to post on Wednesday. I just forgot what day I was on lol. Anyway...here is Friday:

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Right now I'm in a yahoo group called Write_Workshop and a workshop is going on called “Rejection Hell” on how to cope with rejection. There is also a sister list for chatting called: Write_WorkshopChat.

We're up to day 3 of the workshop and it's about not losing your self-esteem due to rejection. (actually on Wed. 2/28 we're up to day 3 because I'm writing blogs ahead as the mood strikes me.)
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You know there are some things that you just don't talk about in polite society. Like sex. Well, yeah, I'm not a member of polite society, so I talk about sex. And anyway, Stephen King says if you want to write, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway. I'm glad I got it out of the way early.

No, what I don't talk about much is Writer's Block. I don't believe in it. I believe I've said before that I don't believe in writers block unless you lose a hand or something. I don't believe it even when I have the classic symptoms. You know...whining, moaning, feeling like I can't write, lying back all dramatic on one of those fainting couches...
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Most authors seem to have them. Some people aren't bothered by them and think of them as the author's fingerprints. Some people are. I'm reading a novel right now in which the words: “spidery” and “spidered” are used way too much.

Don't get me wrong, the occasional use of these words in snippets of description is brilliant and wonderful and gives me images and feelings from the book that I couldn't have gotten any other way. But after awhile it becomes less brilliant and seems more lazy than anything else.
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Even though the last pet peeve number was entirely made up and pulled out of my ass, I thought I would stick with that numbering system, so for those curious, that's where I got the number.

I hate when characters fall in love too quickly in a romance. I mean I understand if the storyline has to happen on a time crunch, but if they've just met there better be some really good reasons they are falling in love so fast. You can fall in lust or infatuation pretty quickly but not love, because I've been in love and am currently in love. What you feel at the beginning is so shallow compared to what comes later.
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Every now and then a novel comes along that causes a big stink and book burnings etc. However, in the end, the author tends to be better off and the banned book becomes more famous. Now, I'm against censorship and this isn't really about censorship pro/con. It's more about...comparatively speaking books are the most free things out there.
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So this is Wednesday, hence it's post-y day. So unless there is something dire going on, I'm posting on the days I said I'm posting. Today's post is writing related but more 'personal' I guess. Kind of more like a regular journal entry. I'm kind of just throwing this out here because it's on my mind a bit and so why the hell not? It's not like it's deep dark secrets which will later incriminate me. Well hopefully. Different people think different things are incriminating.
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Welcome to Monday, and the new blog posting schedule. In personal news I finished the third draft of the paranormal romance today. An end to revisions are in sight and the revision process is getting less and less scary as I learn to trust it. So Yay! :)

On to today's blog topic:
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Ok, this SO does not count as a blog post, but here it is. Some have noticed that I haven't been posting as often as usual. I don't want to lose readers due to my not posting regularly so I'm making a short little post to explain.
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Fewer flashbacks. Most Young Adult novels tend to be shorter and have fewer flashbacks, concentrating instead mostly on the front story.

There tends to be the view by many that if you stick closely with the front story and don't spend a lot of time in flashback that you're writing something "simplistic." Yet, at the same time, lots of flashbacks don't advance the story and cause readers to either skim, or just put the book down, never to pick it back up again.
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OMG, what can I say about this book? It's amazing. It's classed as a Young Adult novel, but it's so richly textured and just plain wonderful that I can't see any adult turning their nose up at it. It's a coming of age novel about a werewolf named Vivian. This is my current favorite book, and probably in my top five all time ever.

It just deeply resonated with me. To say what it's about without giving the plot away besides just saying it's a "coming of age" novel... It's about the struggle between one's light and dark side. It's about family and about the relationship between mother and daughter. It's about love and finding it in places you don't really expect.

It's about werewolves, but there is such a deep realism to so much of it that you easily forget that. Normally I read a vampire or werewolf book and it's a book that's just 'fun' but I don't take it seriously as great literature. This book I feel differently about. It stands, IMO as something deeply wonderful and "breaks out" of genre barriers to be just a fantastic story.

A movie has been made about it, but honestly I would just skip that. The movie is completely different from the book, not the same story. They've cut out the mother entirely, aged Vivian to in her twenties, took the story to another country and made her a trendy club hopper. And made the hero of the book the villain. They've basically cheapened every layer and nuance of the book by turning it into an all werewolf "Underworld." Do yourself a favor and read the book instead.

However, if not for the movie I never would have heard of the it, and never would have found it. So I'm grudgingly grateful that the movie got made, but deeply disappointed that the novel was so desecrated.

5 / 50 (10.0%)

Today my post is going to intersect in a lot of places. It's going to be part book review and part personal observation and by the end of it you may wonder what it has to do with writing, but I hope not. ;)

I'm reading a fantastic book right now called: "Blood and Chocolate" by: Annette Curtis Klause. I started reading it last night and if not for sheer exhaustion, probably wouldn't have put it down. A movie has been made about it and I was intrigued. It's a coming of age story, but that's not what makes it great. What makes it great is that it's about a werewolf named Vivian.

The last lines on the back of the cover sold me completely on this book: "What is she really - human or beast? Which tastes sweeter - blood or chocolate?"

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So on Magical Musings the blog today is about the freedom of being unpublished, how so many writers look back on this "pre-published" time with longing because it was before deadlines, back when writing was just "fun" before it became a job...etc.

So that post inspired my blogpost, and some of it I'm repeating directly from my comment cause I'm getting lazy with the blog. I'm going to have to develop some accountability factor for my blogging. ;)
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So, I'm really getting into this whole "simultaneous" thing. There was a time when I wouldn't work on more than one project at once, for fear that I would drop the other. It really comes down to, being in two different phases of the work. Like I wouldn't write two rough drafts at once, because to me, that's a recipe for badness. (Although this isn't a judgment on someone else's process. If you write more than one rough draft at once and it works for you, more power to you!)
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So there is always this ongoing war over epublishing. One faction says it's not "real publishing" and another faction says: "We're just as good as you...neener neener."

I would like to circumvent that entire argument. Because it's really really not the point. It's two totally different worlds. It's not necessarily a "one or the other" type of deal anyway. You can do both. For a long time I was very resistant to the idea of ebooks. Mostly because I personally am not a big fan of the format. When I read I like a print copy. A real live book in my hands.

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I finally got a strong lock on my goals for this year. They're some pretty big goals. I'd like to complete 4 novels this year. Yes, I said 4. You heard me right. Why Four?
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Let's talk method. I'm still fine tuning mine, but the more I do this novel writing thing, the more I figure out what method works best for me. And what alternate routes I can take. I'm much clearer on the beginning parts of my method cause I've done them longer. When I first started trying to write a novel, I tried to write a rough draft and made several different attempts before I actually got through a rough draft. Then I got to where I'd completed several rough drafts and that was no longer impressive. I'm still fine tuning some of what works for me on revisions, since I haven't been at that stage as long. So...to bore you...here is my method. (Don't worry, I'm going to ask for yours too, because I really am interested in how everybody else works.)
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I'm known as an opinionated person (Frankly I think all writers are. If we didn't have this intense need to express ourselves we wouldn't be writers.)

On a writer loop I frequent we've been discussing expressing yourself without sabotaging yourself. Online it's so easy now to connect with others in the publishing world. And what you say lives on with you forever. I think about this a lot. And I addressed it to some degree on the post where I talked about persona and whether or not I should kill off Zoe Winters.
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