Mostly Better

That cold got a lot worse than I thought it would. But now it's a lot better, though it's still not completely gone. For a couple of days everything felt lifeless. Nothing tasted good. Jokes weren't funny. Books weren't interesting. I couldn't summon up even a drop of creativity. I could tell I was getting better when I started coming up with story ideas again.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with Blood of the Fallen. It's going on the back burner for now, though. The 2YN assignments are getting more in-depth, so I'll be spending more time on that. I'll also still be doing worldbuilding with Holly. I still want a nice meaty writing project, though. Something to sink my teeth into.

I've got an idea for a novella, though, so I'm going to start on that and see how it goes.

(There seems to be something wrong with my blog; I have it set to show entries from the last 14 days, but my first entry, from the beginning of January, is still visible on the main page. Grr...)

Let's Just Be Friends

I'm having some trouble with planning this novel. I like my premise, and I like my characters (I've got a pretty good idea of one, and a very basic idea of the other two)... but that's as far as it goes. There's no lightning. There's no spark. I like this story, but if I saw it in a bookstore, I don't know if I'd pick it up. Sometimes I want to write it, but sometimes I don't care. I'm trying to create chemistry here, but it's just not happening.

But I don't know the reason, or whether it means I should leave the story alone for now. It could be because I'm not used to working on two novels at once - but I'd like to develop the ability to do that. It's hard, though, to direct my creativity-passion in two directions at once. On the other hand, I'm doing fine combining my worldbuilding with my 2YN work.

It could be because I'm afraid of starting a new novel project. (More on this later.)

It could also just be because I'm sick. Maybe this cold I've got is just messing with my creativity.
Or maybe I'm not supposed to be writing this story right now. Which is kind of frustrating. It's a good story. I like it. But from the beginning, that passion just hasn't been there. But does it have to be there, or should I be able to create that feeling on command, or write without it? I don't have that feeling with my short stories. But I've never written a novel without it.

I want a novel to work on, but right now, no story is calling to me. Nothing is hitting me like lightning. This usually isn't a problem for me; usually, I've got too many ideas, not too few. So what's wrong now?

Wait, Who?

Courtesy of Tambo and SAHW, a quiz:


Devoutly dedicated to helping lead others to glory, you are a strong, supportive, and spiritual caregiver.
Summoned, I take the place that has been prepared for me.
Delenn is a character in the Babylon 5 universe. You can read her biography at the Worlds of JMS fansite.

Problem is, I never watched Babylon 5. I have exactly no clue who this person is.

The Perils of Naming

How hard can it be to find a character name?

I have a book called A Dictionary of Angels. As the name implies, it's full of names of angels and descriptions of those angels' spheres of influence. (For example, did you know that the angel Paraqlitos is the guardian angel of the sorrows of death? Me neither.) So of course, when I wanted a name for an angel character of mine, that's where I turned. In searching the back of the book for an index, however, I discovered that this book has an appendix which has some really strange stuff in it. Thus, I found myself having the following one-sided conversation with the book:

"I'm just looking for a character name! I don't need to know how to do an exorcism (as cool as that is). I don't need to make a magic carpet. (It's winter! In New Hampshire! I'll take my nice heated car, thanks. And anyway, we are not in Alladin.) Why is the index so hard to find? ...What do you mean there's no index??"

Needless to say, I didn't find a character name there.

So I turned to the internet. And promptly ended up here.

Now I'm thinking searching someplace for a name for this character is a bad idea. I guess I'll just rely on my own imagintion. Of course, who knows what weird stuff I'll encounter there...

Blood of the Fallen

Since we're not going to start writing our novels for the 2YN class until about halfway through this class, I was thinking today about starting another novel project. I can only write short stories for so long before I start wanting a meatier project. I'm not used to working on two novels at once, but I might as well learn how to do it, right?

So I figured I would write the fantasy novel that was in my head back in December. I opened up Create a Character Clinic by Holly Lisle, which I just bought the other day, and got to work on my three characters for that novel. But I was feeling strangely unenthusiastic about the project. I thought about working on another project I've had in my head for awhile instead, but I felt no draw towards that story. So I asked myself, What project do I want to work on? Is it this novel, or is it something else?

To my surprise, the project that came to mind was Blood of the Fallen, a really weird urban fantasy novel that I thought up two or three years ago and, honestly, was pretty sure I would never write. Suddenly this project is looking interesting to me. The novel's premise is a bit out-there, but I think I can make it work.

So, once again, I opened up Create a Character Clinic and started developing a character, this time from scratch. It's hard work, but I'm having fun with it.

Blood of the Fallen will probably be my next novel, unless I decide it's unworkable.

Goals, and the Lack Thereof

I'm taking the 2006-2007 Only a Novel class (otherwise known as the 2YN class) on Forward Motion. Basically, the class takes you through the whole process of writing a novel, from basic idea-creation to revising and submitting. It started at the beginning of this month, and right now we're going over basic elements like idea and theme.

The first place I had trouble was with genre. Someone in the class compared my idea to Lyda Morehouse's AngeLINK books, which made me happy, because those are some of my favorite books. (Angels! Cool religion stuff! Dark urban setting! Complicated twisty plots! All elements I love.) But the problem is that my idea, like those books, straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy. The AngeLINK books are classified as science fiction, but I didn't feel like my idea could really fit into that genre. But it's not exactly fantasy either. After pondering for awhile, I decided to call it post-apocalyptic fantasy.

This week's assignment involves figuring out the main character's main goal and the conflicts that will get in the way of achieving that goal. And I'm having a surprisingly hard time with it. I have a basic idea of what will happen in this book... but it's hard for me to pin down just what the main character is trying to accomplish. I think I have this problem with a lot of books, actually. My main characters don't often have clear goals. They're also often much too passive, with the story consisting of them dealing with whatever life throws at them, instead of them taking initiative. This may be why I tend to lose inspiration for my novels shortly after I start writing the middle sections, actually. My characters don't have anything to accomplish. Their main job is to sit around waiting for life to throw them a bad situation for them to get out of.

Now that I think about it, I don't think any of my characters has had a clear goal. This is a problem.

I just hope it's the problem that's been causing my novels to die horrible agonizing deaths. If so, I can fix it, and my novels will then stay alive until I'm done writing them. (After all, my characters are supposed to die horrible agonizing deaths, not the books themselves.)

Yes, that would be good.

Weird Cover Quote

On the back of The Nag Hammadi Library (edited by James M. Robinson) is this quote:

"Opens the secrets of a religion, which the Gnostics themselves had hoped would be kept sealed until the Last Day." - The New York Review of Books

So... this quote basically says that even the people who wrote this book didn't want it published. Is that a good review or a bad review?

Either way, I think it's the weirdest cover quote I've ever seen.

Of course, there was that one book whose only cover quote was from the author...

Ascension

A couple of months ago, I started writing a novel called Ascension. It was an experiment in writing without an outline, and so it turned strange very quickly. The story stalled, and I'm not sure whether I'll do any more work on it or not; I'll probably revisit the basic idea in a few years, change it around, and do something completely different with it. I don't think I'm going to finish it in its current form (though I still might). But there are still parts of it that I like, and I thought I'd post a short sample:

She didn't understand how Themea's body could be here, still preserved over so many years. But it was undeniably her. Taylor knew it in her heart. Once, long ago, she had lived in that body. Now she stood in a different body, looking down at the one she had once worn.

It was an eerie feeling.

She stared down at Themea's body for awhile, wondering whether she would ever remember that life. She wished she did; things would be so much simpler then. She would know how to defeat the demons. On second thought, though, maybe she wouldn't. The demons had beaten Themea, not the other way around; otherwise, Taylor wouldn't be standing looking down at her body. Taylor rested her hand on Themea's cheek; it felt cool and smooth.

"Tell me, Themea," she whispered. "Tell me how to fight them." But she knew she wouldn't receive an answer. This body was empty, and the soul it had once housed was her own. The answers might be somewhere inside her, if only she knew where to find them. And she wasn't even sure whether they were there at all. She thought back to all the bodies lying in the center room, and to opening doors to room after room of destruction. How could she fight something like that? She, who until yesterday had never known this war existed? A tear rolled down her cheek and landed in the corner of Themea's eye.

"Tell me," she whispered again. "I don't know how to fight this war. Maybe everybody else is right; maybe it's too late. But I think there has to be a way. I just don't know what it is. I need your help. Where are you, Themea? Where are you?"

College Writing Classes

I've given up on college writing classes.

I've taken a few of them. A couple of fiction classes, and a couple of nonfiction classes (because fiction classes are few and far between). In none of them has the main focus been writing. They all seem to focus primarily on reading, and analyzing what we read. When I gripe about this to people, they tend to say something to the effect of, "You have to read to be a writer." Believe me, I know that, and I've got the reading part down. I've been a bookworm since before I could read. And the reading I do on my own is more useful to my writing than the reading I've done in those classes. I'm much more likely to write like Mercedes Lackey or Holly Lisle than like Don DeLillo.

And if all this reading is supposed to be teaching us something about writing, why do we not analyze the stories from a writer's perspective instead of a reader's?

The college that I live near has, as far as I can tell, exactly one fiction class. You have to get special permission to take it. I got that permission, from the instructor of an essay-writing class I had taken there earlier. I learned that the class was mainly about reading and analyzing stories, rather than actually writing them. This frustrated me, but I planned to take the class anyway - until I found out about another class at a different nearby college. This class was called "Speculative Writing," and the description said that it was about writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I was excited - finally, a class about the kind of writing I actually did! So I quickly exchanged the lackluster-looking fiction class for this one.Unfortunately, the class was not at all about the type of writing I did. I started to realize that on the first day when the instructor said that we should strive to be as artsy and intellectual as possible. We wound up spending most of our time reading literary stories with various types of monsters in them. Again, the writing aspect was secondary.

That class was the last straw. I never went back to take that other fiction class. In fact, I haven't taken any other college writing classes since then.

I don't think I will.

Not a Morning Person

A lot of writers say that they do their best writing in the early mornings. They say they get up early, before everyone else, and start writing. They take advantage of the morning calm and the receptive state of not having been awake for very long.

My response to this is an inarticulate scream of horror.

I have nothing against morning writers; I wish them luck. But I can't do it. I usually wake up at the crack of nine, and use every ounce of willpower that I possess to drag myself out of bed instead of turning off the alarm, pulling the covers over my head, and falling back asleep. I then browse the internet for an hour or two, while my brain slowly begins to function normally. After my brain wakes up, I can write. But trying before then only leads to staring at a blank screen.

Other than "not in the mornings," I don't think I have an optimal writing time. I can write in the afternoon, in the evening, at night... whenever. Just not in the mornings. Lately, though, I've been doing a lot of my writing late at night. This makes sense, seeing as I'm a night person. I tend to go to bed somewhere between 2 and 2:30 a.m. My brain is most awake in the evening and at night. So it follows that I would do a lot of writing at night. Afternoon writing is good too, though. Just... not in the morning.

On that note, it's getting late, so I'm off to write. Maybe I'll write that short story I've had in my head for months, the one about Lilith.

Where I Write

Inspired by Paperback Writer, here's a picture of where I write:

Yeah, it's kind of messy, but it doesn't bother me. Besides, there's a reason all those books are on the floor - there's not enough room for them on the shelves. (And yet I keep buying more...)

The Introduction

So, here I am. I'm Zoe, and I'm an aspiring writer. I've been meaning to start a writing blog for awhile, but I'm only now getting around to it. (Pretty much everything in this blog will be writing-related, though other stuff may sneak in once in awhile.) I mostly write fantasy, in various forms, generally contemporary fantasy. I write novels more naturally than I write short stories, but lately I've been writing short stories when I'm between novels. As for novels, for the longest time I couldn't get one finished, until a couple of years ago NaNoWriMo gave me the kick in the pants I needed. Now I've written four of them, though I don't think any of them are publishable-quality yet. I'm getting there, though...

And I'm having lots of fun along the way. And that's what's really important.