Tag: writer

About Me

Accidentally writing a novel

Autumn

I’ve hit 30,000 words with Alice and the Warden. While I had originally intended it to be a cutesy little side project, I just keep having more ideas. Thus, the story is still ongoing, and I haven’t even proven who the real murderer is yet.

At this point, I’ve realized that if I properly fleshed out the descriptions and gave it a (very) solid round of editing, I could publish it as a novel. Insert philosophy about additive writing, blah blah blah, etc. Basically, with my writing process, I metaphorically paint in broad strokes with the first draft then go back and add the details in later. That means that 30,000 words is going to end up being longer in the final version just from adding in details.

Not right now, though. Right now it’s July. My brain is melting out of my ears, and I’m having weird dreams about my children eating moldy cabbage. Like they’d ever willingly touch cabbage. I do not handle this part of summer all that well.

Anyway, it is kind of funny that my little romantic story has taken on such a life of its own.

I haven’t even gotten the two of them laid yet. XD

Stories

Concept story – THEM

Autumn

In the spirit of mentally changing the scenery to help stretch the kinks out, I wrote this concept story. It’s an idea that I’ve been playing with for awhile now — one o’ them scifi-fantasy hybrids. Anyway, it’s still very much a rough draft and needs a great deal more fleshing out before it can become a full blown story, but I think it has a good core.

Anthea grabbed Sebastian’s arm and pulled him underneath a nearby pine tree, holding him close as she pressed her back against the rough trunk. The bark made her skin itch through her shirt, but she kept her eyes locked on the gray clouds above them, barely daring to breathe.

After a minute, she whispered, “I don’t think They saw us.” Then she looked down at the four-year-old boy clinging to her leg and smiled. “There’s a great big house over there. If we can be quick and sneaky, we can hide inside.”

Sebastian nodded, his eyes huge with fear. Turning around, Anthea bent down to hoist him up onto her back, paused to loosen his grip around her neck, then darted from tree to tree, careful to remain underneath the branches as much as she could. It seemed as if the sky grew darker and more menacing as she went, but she didn’t dare pause to check if They were there.

There was a good 20-foot gap between the branches of the last tree and the stairs leading to the front door. Anthea took a deep breath before she sprinted, praying with every step that she’d reach the eaves of the house. It was almost surreal to discover that they were still alive as she pulled the door open and dumped Sebastian inside, and she hung in the doorway to stare out at the sky. The gray clouds churned and for a heart-stopping moment she thought she saw a flash of one of Them, but nothing happened as the seconds ticked away.

Sebastian’s hand tugged at her shirt. Anthea turned around, then compulsively pulled the small child against her as she let out a stifled gasp.

The sorcerer watched them from several feet away, he hand lax on his staff. He had very long, and very straight black hair that matched his matte black robe, making Anthea think he was more reminiscent of the ancient stories about vampires.

“It’s all right, Anthea,” he said with a smile. “I’m not dangerous.”

“Who are you? How do you know my name?” she blurted, then immediately felt foolish for asking such stereotypical questions. The sorcerer’s appearance was so unexpected her mind had turned itself off, and all she could do was default to cheesy cliches.

“To put it simply, we are betrothed,” he answered softly.

“Betrothed? You mean . . . marriage?” Anthea was feeling even more numb. “How is that possible? I’m not from . . .”

“Kyros brought you here from the past, I know,” the sorcerer said as he stepped forward. “And I am from the future. However, we must find our small pleasures whenever we can, and this night will belong to us.” He then knelt down next to Sebastian, who scooted to hide behind Anthea’s leg, and smiled as he asked, “Are you hungry? I have prepared a feast for us, with an assortment of sweets for dessert.”

Sebastian looked up at Anthea.

“I think it will be okay,” she told him, still struggling to process what was happening. “They didn’t see us come here, and we have to stay put until morning anyway.”

Anthea felt mesmerized by the sorcerer as he led them to the dining room, and she wondered if she had died during her sprint from the tree to the house after all – it felt too much like a dream to be the harsh world that Kyros had brought her into. However, Sebastian’s hand in hers felt solid, and the tantalizing smell of food was real enough. She hadn’t eaten that well since she had been yanked out of her previous life, and she couldn’t resist the urge to dig in and enjoy herself. Sebastian gave his serving of meat and gravy an obligatory nibble, helped himself to a pastry filled with whipped cream. Anthea almost scolded him for not properly eating his dinner, then stopped with the thought that he had likely never tasted whipped cream before in his entire life. If this truly was a dream, then it might as well be a good one, so she let it slide.

The sorcerer didn’t speak as they ate. He seemed content to sit and watch Anthea, and something about his eyes made her heart pound. He had said that he had come from the future, and it was strange to think of herself as the wife of someone who was quite literally dark and mysterious.

Anthea was a nanny. An important nanny who looked after the prince, perhaps, but still one just the same. The story that Kyros told her was that her older, original, incarnation had cared for Sebastian since his birth, until she had been killed protecting him when their settlement had been discovered and destroyed by Them. Kyros then journeyed into the past and brought the younger, current her forward with him, swearing to take complete responsibility for her afterwards. Anthea had assumed that meant she belonged to Kyros.

How could she end up married to the sorcerer?

When they were too stuffed to eat any more, the sorcerer took them to the den. There was a chest of toys for Sebastian to play with, and the sorcerer motioned for Anthea to join him on the sofa. He put his arms around her and pulled her against him, but Anthea remained stiff.

“I don’t understand . . .” she protested, attempting to sit back up straight, but the sorcerer didn’t let her.

“I wanted to see you,” he murmured. “There isn’t enough time in the future, so please indulge me.”

His words were even more confusing. “You make it sound like I’m going to die,” she said.

“No.” He chuckled slightly. “I’ll keep you alive.”

Anthea allowed herself to relax and watched Sebastian play happily with an assortment of cars and airplanes. She could hear the sorcerer’s heart beating inside his chest at a slightly quickened pace, and the thought of him experiencing some sort of emotion underneath that placid exterior was oddly comforting.

Was it love?

Sebastian was shrieking with delight as he played, behaving more like the four-year-olds that Anthea had known from her previous life – before They had arrived and driven humanity away from the surface. The sight brought tears to her eyes.

The sorcerer remained silent as he held her, his mouth slightly down turned as he stared at the floor. As the night wore on, Sebastian climbed up onto the sofa next to them and fell asleep with an airplane clutched in his hand, and the sorcerer produced a warm blanket that he spread over the three of them. Anthea couldn’t help but drift off as well, feeling oddly safe with that strange man who had so mysteriously appeared. She decided that when she met him properly in the future, she would fall in love and marry him . . .

*

Sunlight woke her up. Anthea’s muscles ached, and she felt empty as she sat up and looked around. Her movement roused Sebastian, and after a minute his small voice asked, “Where is everything?”

“I don’t know,” Anthea replied. The room was now empty and dilapidated, with no sign of the sorcerer anywhere. The only things that remained were the airplane in Sebastian’s hands, and the blanket that had covered them both. “Last night really happened, right?” she asked.

“I think so,” Sebastian replied.

She stood and stretched, hoping to shake off the dazed sensation that pressed against her ears. “C’mon, let’s get you home. Kyros is going to be mad enough as it is, without us dawdling.”

Anthea carefully folded up the blanket, and with it tucked under her arm she took Sebastian’s hand and slipped out the front door, casting one last glance back as they left.

About Me

Restless

Autumn

I always confine myself for awhile after giving birth, mostly to protect my baby from THE WORLD and all the diseases that come with it — a mild cold for an adult can be a hospital trip for a newborn, after all. So, baby’s first month is always spent in the safety of home.

This time though, I feel like I’ve been “lying in” since March (y’all know why). I’m already feeling restless, and I really want to go out and buy some fabric, or something. I’m not really picky, as long as it’s different scenery. Even *I* have my limits.

Which is making it hard to think clearly.

But I’m not taking a tiny baby OUT THERE. Especially not this year.

I can’t help but suspect that this restlessness is the reason why I can’t stop rewriting the same paragraph over and over with my fiction. It always feels wrong, and I just can’t commit to it. So I delete the words, type new ones, and decide I don’t like those either.

Ugh.

Maybe I can get my husband to take us all out on a long drive this weekend.

About Me

Easter, et al

Autumn

We survived Easter.

There’s about a million things happening this Spring, and throwing chocolate rabbits and jelly beans into the mix resulted in absolute pandemonium with the children. O. M. G.

But we miraculously survived.

Phew.

Naturally, the kids immediately started counting down the days until the NEXT EVENT, and I couldn’t help but groan inside. Better than sitting around bored, but I wouldn’t mind slowing down the pace somewhat. Just give me enough time to catch up on the dishes? I can’t move very fast anymore.

Honestly, I’m rather enjoying lockdown. We got bored of movie theaters and the mall years ago, restaurants lost their appeal because the quality was going downhill, and public celebrations were unpleasant with all the people pushing my children out of the way to get a better shot on their phones. Not to mention, we discovered that ‘social distancing’ is a fantastic way of avoiding certain personality types without coming across as overtly rude.

It’s nice being able to breathe without everyone getting up in my business — and the grocery store is still only a few minutes away. Win-win!

I don’t expect the lockdown to end any time soon, so I might as well be open-minded and adaptable; it’s probably better to have the children climbing trees instead of playgrounds anyway.

I miss being the sort of person who straps a newborn to my chest then hikes up a mountain.

About Writing

Realistic Fiction

Autumn

I don’t normally write realistic fiction.

I was put off the genre back in my Creative Writing classes, when everyone assumed that my realistic stories were biographical, to the point where it caused some unwelcome drama. No, I did not base any characters off of you as some sort of passive-aggressive attack. Chill out.

Currently, Alice and the Warden is my only story that doesn’t contain fantastical elements, since my main reason for writing it is to indulge in over-the-top adorableness and romance. Throwing in things like magic, dragons, or aliens would detract from that. Aside from being set in a castle-prison in an ancient forest, everything could sort of actually happen maybe? Since it’s more realistic than, say, The Scion Suit, I have anxiety that others will think that it’s biographical.

Especially because a lot of authors really do base characters off of real people.

No, I have never met any women who ran off with degenerate boyfriends in their teens, then turned their lives around when they had a baby (and that never happened to me either). I could say that Alice is based off of attributes from a wide variety of people that I’ve met in my lifetime, but in my opinion, the most accurate way of describing it is that she sought me out on the spiritual level to tell her story.

Things writers don’t talk about because it makes them sound crazy, lol.

Truthfully though, I could never write anything too realistic. I like to take too many creative liberties. After all, castle-prisons are far more romantic than regular prisons.

About Me

Animal Crossing

Autumn

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released today.

So you’ll probably never hear from me again.

.

.

.

LOL JK!

But dang, I sure could use some time relaxing after how this last week turned out.

About Writing

Alice & Alicia

Autumn

Lately I’ve been devoting most of my free time to working on Alice and the Warden, and I haven’t been putting much energy into blogging — reading or writing. Since I consider writing fiction to be my strongest talent, I’m at peace with the idea of posting a new story section once a week and spending the rest of my time offline.

Totally not dead. Not snubbing anyone. Not bored and on the verge of disappearing. I’m just entering my third trimester, and feeling more introverted than usual. Still completely enamored with storytelling.

I do want to say this, however, in regards to Alice and the Warden:

I am aware that I named the baby Alicia.

I know that spoken out loud, Alice and Alicia are pronounced very differently, but in written form we’re merely swapping an ‘e’ for an ‘ia’.

I know that this can get visually confusing.

In fact, I even had an argument with Alice over it (yes, my own fictional character), and pointed out that in a story that is intended to be read, it would be easier if we named the baby something else. I was promptly informed that either I write the story as it comes to me, or I can forget writing the story at all.

So, I apologize if I accidentally type ‘Alice’ when I meant ‘Alicia’ (and vice versa). I’m doing my best to keep my brain and fingers on the correct course.

About Me

Even Moms

Autumn

I sat down to work on writing my story.

I had the 1.5-year-old solidly in my lap, flailing a balloon around and giggling.

The 8-year-old was listening to her favorite song on repeat.

The 4-year-old and 6-year-old were running around the darkened living room with a flashlight.

When all of a sudden it hit me that I was actually pulling it off.

Oh sure, my story wasn’t exactly progressing quickly, considering that I had to periodically move a balloon out of my face and all, but it was progressing. Despite all the chaos, I was actually getting some writing done.

And all I can feel is an awestruck sense of, “Wow.”

Once upon a time, I used to pray for the planets to align with nap times and quiet hours, then struggled with frustration when day after day refused to turn out the way I wanted it to. Finally, while my third was still a baby, I decided that I had enough and set my mind on writing Light Eternal, rain or shine.

That was late 2016. I finished the second draft a year later, then hung on to it for awhile out of indecision before officially publishing it in 2019. Phew.

In 2018 I had my fourth baby, and shortly afterwards started telling The Black Magus to myself during all the hours and hours and hours that I spent nursing. It wasn’t long before I figured out how to keep baby propped up on the pillow so I could write it down while the other children played video games. I am currently finishing the final proofread.

Some days, I have a harder time tuning out the noise and distractions, and having all the kids around probably isn’t helping me produce the highest quality of writing, but I have become a strong believer in persistence (and editing). It may take me forever to finish a novel, but progress is progress.

I’m blogging about this because I want other moms with small children to know that they can still have hobbies, without hiring a nanny or enlisting an army of babysitters. Guess what? You can still feel like a person with hopes and dreams, even with all the vacuuming and diaper changes.

You just need to find your zen, so to speak. Honestly evaluate what you’ve got to work with, and let go of the perfect scenarios that just aren’t going to happen. Find the spare time in between activities, and utilize it instead of killing it.

And I know: it’s hard. It took me eight years to get to this point, but I did it. Don’t ever give up.

Alice and the Warden

Alice and the Warden – 3

Autumn

Alice had met Damon when she was sixteen-years-old, and he had talked her into bed with him that night. Shortly afterwards, she dropped out of school to run away with him on his motorcycle, and somewhere along the road she lost her sense of self.

When Damon asked her to have sex with a friend to repay a favor, she did it. When he wanted leverage over someone, she became a seductress on his behalf. He taught her to steal, chose her clothing for her, and pushed her into drugs and alcohol. After four years, Alice had disappeared completely underneath Damon, to the point that when he asked her to confess to murder, she did it without hesitation.

Until the moment Alice found herself alone in the stall of a public restroom, staring down at the two lines of a nicked pregnancy test, too numb to feel her heart beat. It was then that the word ‘dignity’ had risen up sharply in her mind, spoken by that stupid, impotent warden she had vowed to hate just three weeks prior.

Dignity.

She still didn’t know what it meant, but she knew that if she told Damon he would insist on an abortion, and she wouldn’t argue against him. That wasn’t what she wanted, and she knew that it wasn’t dignified to be so blindly obedient to someone like Damon. There was no doubt that he was the father, but she couldn’t trust him with her baby.

She never told him.

A couple weeks later, they checked into a motel where Damon began to undress her as usual, but Alice didn’t have it in her to go through with it. She was more tired than she had thought possible, slightly nauseated from the pregnancy, and angry at Damon for using her too much. For the first time ever, she snapped at him to ‘fuck off,’ then for a terrifying second afterward thought that he was going to hit her in response.

Instead, he grabbed his bag and left.

When dawn broke in the morning, Alice awoke with the realization that he hadn’t returned. She waited, staring at the clock until the motel staff chased her out to prepare the room for the next guest, and she drifted to a nearby diner to continue her wait, knowing full well that he wasn’t coming back for her.

She had a $20 hidden in her bra, so she ordered blueberry pancakes with whipped cream to help make up for skimping on dinner the night before, and she ate slowly as she wondered about what she was going to do. Her mom wasn’t going to want her back in the state she was in – especially after four years of estrangement – and everyone she knew was exactly like Damon. She didn’t have any resources, but she couldn’t live in the gutter with a baby growing inside of her.

By chance, the small TV in the corner of the diner showed a mugshot of her with the words, “Wanted for questioning.” Alice stared, seeing herself for the first time. That girl, glowering at the camera with flamingo pink hair and far too much eyeliner really looked like the sort of person who would be involved in murder, even though Alice had never felt that way on the inside – she didn’t want to hurt anyone.

She dialed the phone number provided on the screen with her cellphone, then put her $20 on the table before slipping outside.

With nowhere to go, Alice turned herself in.

NEXT

The Black Magus

Real Love

Autumn

I’m a hopeless romantic, through and through.

This was perhaps a bit silly of me, but after “The Scion Suit” gained a smidgen of attention on Reddit, I wondered if I should downplay the romance aspect of The Black Magus to make it sound more appealing to the sort of people who would actually read it — after all, I don’t think that I’d gain much traction with Twilight fans. But, I decided that would be rather disingenuous, considering that it’s right there in the very first chapter.

So there you have it: The Black Magus is the ultimate Mary-Sue fanfic, where the main character is a shy nobody who through sheer coincidence gains the attention of the most powerful magus on the planet. He competes against another magus to win her affection in a saucy love triangle, and ultimately pulls ahead by gifting her the most expensive car ever built. The girl, on the other hand, maintains an emotional affair with the other guy, just to prove how strong and independent she is after she’s married …

…

LOL JK

I’m totally not awesome enough to write that.

It’s not the sort of crap that’s always portrayed in popular romance novels. It’s also not the sort of “singles together” crap that we’re told to settle for because “romance doesn’t exist”. You won’t find any Taylor Swift songs that fit it.

It’s about devotion and compassion. It’s about two people joining together to become a family, and learning how to be there for each other. It’s about real love.

There’s also some stuff about magic and the world they live in, and a few other characters who have some dialogue and whatnot. You know, that necessary story-type stuff, to flesh it out into an actual novel and set up the sequel.

So, I have decided against downplaying the romance aspect of The Black Magus, because it is the entire foundation and structure of the novel. Please, don’t dismiss it because of a few bad stereotypes — I assure you that this story is different.