No rhyme or reason to today’s snippet. I picked a random chapter from a random story, copied and pasted whatever caught my eye. I’m kind of vain about this story though. I really enjoyed letting loose and writing this one. One of my faves.
From Same Time Next Week, enjoy today’s Snip!
Photo courtesy Melissa Wilkinson | Photobucket.com
Hi folks and fellow writers! It’s another Wednesday, so it’s another day to talk about Writing- where we are with our WIPs and what we’ve discovered during our writing journeys.
After a long bout of avoidance and procrastinating on easy stuff and doing everything but working on my novel, I finally pulled out New Project. And ya know what?
Uh. Uh.
No wonder I can’t get past my current point. There’s nothing there! Nothing good, anyway. It’s an info/backstory dump. The story starts in the wrong place. Doesn’t go in depth enough. And doesn’t make the reader care a tiny bit.
Yesterday I threatened to delete the whole thing. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I am going to start over, using what I have as a base. I think, though, first I am going to do a synopsis, which is an overview of the book, told in 3-4 pages. If I can’t get my act together enough to write a synopsis, I can’t write this entire story.
I really fear that I haven’t thought this out enough. I get to a certain point and think. Well, now what happens? I read books and I see beats of action, information, dialog, everyday events and I think……….where does that come from? How did the author plan that out?
If I think about the longest. story. evar, I had an end result in mind. I had certain things that had to happen in order for my end result to make sense. I also had to show a long stretch of time, to build up not only tension, but believability. I couldn’t have my characters fall in love in chapter 3… I just don’t believe it happens that way and I roll my eyes when I see it.
I have no idea why I named it that, except the decision that my female MC, Gabby, needs to make is such a no brainer. Duh.
Here’s a snippet from that story, which will be posted in its entirety at the fanfiction archive and my personal archive.
“Your mom, she’s okay?”
“More than okay. It was just me and her for a long time, you know? She put herself through nursing school, put me through school. She made it work.”
“She must have given you your spunk.”
“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah. I’m proud of her. When I graduated, she went back for another degree. And then she married one of her doctors, so…” Gabby stopped to laugh.
A knowing smile broke across his face. He nodded. “So she’s doing just fine, huh?”
“Just fine,” she said, nodding back.
“So your… stepdad? Is he a good guy?”
“He’s the best thing to ever happen to her. He’s why she’s always after me to date and meet new guys. She wants me to be as happy as she is.” Gabby snorted a laugh. Like she could subscribe to the fairytale her mother tried to plant in her head.
“You sound like you don’t think that’s possible. People find love everywhere. Anywhere. You never know.”
Even on the Sunset Strip. Wait. What?
Et Voila. I hope you’ll read the rest later on today!
I guess I’m staying with that title for now. I decided, since I am writing the sequel to this story right now, to post a snippet of it today. Mostly since I haven’t really gotten that far on the sequel and I think I will be able to post a snip from that one next week.
This is from Rescue Me, Originally posted August 8, 2010:
He gave her a devilish half grin and rolled to his side. “So there’s a part in that movie, which we‘re probably missing right now, where Edward climbs the trellis outside Vivian’s place, like the Prince in her story. And when he gets to the Princess, he asks her, what happens after he climbs the tower and rescues her?”
“She rescues him right back.”
He smiled, stroking her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “I didn’t want to be here by myself, so I went out last night. I was in a room full of people but I was alone, and I was coming back to a house where I’d be alone. I probably wouldn’t have made it home, but then you came and rescued me. And I know you’re leaving town and all, but– ”
Barely audible, Gabby said, “You could rescue me right back.”
He laughed aloud, scooting closer to her. “That’s exactly what I was thinking I would do.”
You can find the entire story posted at my archive here or at the NF archive here.
Good Monday morning to you all (and by all I mean the three or four people that read this blog)!
Last week was alternately busy and slackerrific. I started my new story for the archive, due in August. Got about 5500 words in, which is pretty good. This story is a sequel to one that I wrote for the same challenge last year and only hit around 6500 words. I’m not getting how the sequel is going to be longer… but perhaps because it covers one more night. I don’t know if I should revamp it for the sequel to cover the same span of time, or keep going like I’m going. I have the tendency to write too much and then cut a LOT. So. I don’t know.
I guess I am okay with what I have so far. I’ll pretty it up before anyone sees it anyway.
Last night I was digging around Livejournal for some prompts, etc. I found a Criminal Minds fanfiction community with actual really good writing. Ya’ll know where I will be. Crossover is IMMINENT, because I’ve already had JC as an FBI agent wandering around in my head for months.
So, I mentioned a few days ago that I would no longer be participating in the official Six Sentence Sunday. I also mentioned that I would continue to post snippets and teasers, so I’m continuing the Sunday posts, just not for the #SixSunday Crew.
I need a new name for this feature. Calling it Snippet Sunday for now. Suggestions?
Anywhoozle, on to my sentences for today! They’re from the project I’m currently working on for Awesome August, a summer writing challenge at the NF archive. It is a sequel to the story I wrote last year, a cute little ditty that’s reminiscent of Pretty Woman. Enjoy, and please check out last year’s story and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the new one! I haven’t decided what day I’ll post it but I’ll let you know when it’s up!
(BTW, Loyal Readers, YES I am quite evil, teasing you all like this, and YES I do plan to tease you with snippets until I post the entire story. It’s just the way I am!)
Good Monday morning, everyone! Checking bright and… well… checking in.
I want to thank everyone who stopped by the blog yesterday to read and comment on my Sunday Six post. I’m finding that I love all of my stories for different reasons and sharing them is fun. However, yesterday marked my last day of participation in the Sunday Six.
I really have to evaluate what I want to get out of each community that I join. I am looking for a camaraderie among writers, an opportunity to share my work and hear people’s thoughts about it and also bring new readers to my stories and to my blog. Part of that is me posting more often about things other than how hard it is to write– we’ve all established that this is not easy. Part of that is not getting invovlved in things that does not move that goal forward. While I’ve enjoyed sharing my sentences over the last few months, it hasn’t brought me what I thought it would. Due to the popularity of SundaySix, – the weekly participation list has grown too long for me to get through, to comment on everyone’s sentences like I want them to comment on mine. I’d like to say I just don’t have time, but that isn’t it. I have plenty of time but I don’t have the will. Even with fan fiction, I am not HUGE on reading “everyone’s” work. I read people I resonate with, whose stories speak to me, whose writing I get lost in. I found myself reading a lot of material I didn’t care for, making a comment just to make one, and then moving along like a robot. If I am not reading and commenting on others’ sentences, I’m not putting mine up. Just not fair or right.
That isn’t to say that I won’t still pick an excerpt and share, because I actually like doing that, even if no one reads it.
Now, on to the future.
It’s another Six Sentence Sunday, where writers post six– yes, only six– sentences to showcase their work.
Today’s sentences come, by request of a very faithful reader, from my most recent finished story entitled Nowhere Man, about a man who is homeless and is befriended by a woman who seems to have been watching over him for quite some time. Part angel, part rebel, this woman (Nix) takes her new friend on an outing. On this outing, he meets her gaggle of friends, some rough-and-tumble guys from the “South Side”. One friend in particular doesn’t take too kindly to the new guy sniffing around his friend.
Colin, the bear of a man that had greeted Phee first, exploded into the bathroom and before JC realized it, he was pinned to the wall by Colin’s enormous hand and his feet dangled a good half inch off of the floor. He could breathe—barely—but his heart thumped out of his chest and he was starting to panic.
“You fuckin’ around with Nix?” A snarl replaced his playful demeanor from earlier in the day, accompanied by dark, beady eyes and bushy eyebrows knit together in fury. “Answer me, fucker!”
Eyes desperately large and earnestly round, JC shook his head and clawed at Colin’s hand, squealing, “N-N-No, swear to God, I’m not!”
Et voila! Visit the other Sunday Sixers at SixSunday.com
This month the Fellow Writer’s Blog Hop topic is Writer’s Flashback. To take a look at something written maybe several months to years ago and share how our writing has evolved since then.
Oh. Gawd.
I have been writing since I was a teenager, but I don’t have any of that material. I took a long, LONG hiatus from writing and only picked it back up a few years ago in the form of Fanfiction. *cough* NSYNC fanfiction*cough*
The first story that I wrote was really, really bad. It was never posted anywhere and I abandoned it pretty early on. It was reincarnated as my longest. story. evar and I ended up finishing it in January of this year. The first story that I posted at the archive, however, was a ditty called “Let’s Start Over“, about a spoiled, petulant brat of a popstar who is forced to work with one of the “Kings of BubbleGum Pop”. Despite her innate need and want to dislike him, his easy going nature and ability to prove that he was more than a soft pop song writer wins her over. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s sentences come from a shorter story that I wrote for the fiction archive. I recently re-read some of my work to get back into some kind of writing groove. I actually really love this story– not to toot my own horn but it came out really well, in my opinion. I was a little surprised that it didn’t get much of a reception, but oh well. At least I liked it? The story is titled Haunted By a Song and it is about a man who has a recurring dream about a life that is contrary to the perfect, Rockwellian-like one he is living. Turns out that the dream is about a song that he must write and a dream that he must live out. In this scene, Josh has come into contact with a man who says he wants to take Josh– and the song– to New York and make him a star. But is Josh ready to start living the dream?
“So all he said was that he wanted to make you a star, and then walked away?” Celeste pulled the covers back on the bed and slid between the sheets, then laid down to watch her husband pace the length of the room, staring at the card in his hand as he’d been doing for the last 45 minutes, at least.
“That’s all he said, and gave me the card and said to call him if I was interested. I’ve never even heard of this guy–he could be anybody. I mean… I just… what do I do?”
“Well, first you get naked and then you get in the bed, and then we talk. Come on, move it.”
I just stumbled onto this post this morning… well not really stumbled, since I follow Confident Writing via Google Reader, but you know what I mean. At first I was just going to mark all as read the way I’ve been doing for awhile because I don’t feel like reading writing posts right now, but the introductory quote caught my eye:
“It’s a lovely piece of writing”, he said, somewhat wistfully. “It’s beautiful”, he said, and handed back the poem. “But what’s the point of me writing when I’ll never be able to write something as good as that?”
I went on to read the 9 Reasons to not stop yourself from starting (which I have been muy mucho guilty of lately, and I don’t even speak spanish). I encourage you to check out the entire post, because it is rather encouraging on a very basic, simple, easy-for-this-writer-to-understand level:
1. Writing has a ripple effect – How many times have I opened a WIP and got to work on something because I read something that inspired something in me? In effect, writing makes others write. It happened to me and can happen to someone else.
2. Your writing can only improve through practice - I know for a fact, by reading things I wrote years ago, months ago, weeks ago, that this is true.
3. No-one else has your perspective, experience, or voice - This is something I struggle with. I really feel like I am not saying anything new or revealing. Maybe there are no new ideas just different ways to present them?
4. You never know the difference your words will make - I don’t talk about my fanfiction must here but I was voted an “Inspiring Writer” by the community where I post my stories. That actually means a lot to me. It also adds PRESSURE.
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