What I've Learned While Writing Crow

Writing Crow has been unlike any novel I've written before.

Firstly, I started off with an outline and a general idea of who my characters are and what they're conflicts are. I've never done this in a story before - always having a general idea and letting my muse and my characters sort it out as I go. Even with Firechild, which I've been calling a "First Draft Re-Write" because I ended up taking the previous drafts and using them more like an outline since so much of the meat of the story has evolved over the years. This was something I learned from working on Crow.

The story has unfolded much more easily and taken less detours, since I know where it's headed beforehand and what needs to happen next to get to the outcome I desire. However, the actual story - the individual scenes and the characters themselves, have surprised me. I found, even working with an outline, that there is plenty of room for creativity and change. I start each chapter with a vague idea of what needs to be in it and let my imagination take it where it needed to go. It seems to have made a huge difference, since Ive managed to keep myself on track with my deadline and my expectations. The relationship between the main characters grew differently than I expected - as did who the villain will end up being (that epiphany really stunned me when I figured it out!) Working with the outline ended up being the skeleton upon which the rest hung - but the individual features didn't come into focus until I added the muscle. The second draft will be like adding the skin and the face - putting on the details to pull the whole thing into focus.

Secondly, I need to set realistic goals for what I'm able to do with the time I have. Technically, I have two full time jobs and one part time one that pays my bills. Two - three days per week I have to go into the office. The rest of my days I have to find a balance between taking care of two young children, keeping my home and it's chaotic messes in order and finding time to write. I try to write every day I'm home - usually when the kids are napping. If I'm only able to churn out 1000 - 2500 words in a day, that's what I'm going to have to aim for. Some days I have a really inspired day and my kids are on their best behavior - I may be able to get out 3000+, but that's rare. I can't spit out a novel in three weeks like some other writers - I have responsibilities that won't allow it and I have to make it work for me. Setting realistic goals, I still feel rather accomplished at the end of the day. I've gotten a good chapter written, my kids are happy and fed, my dishes are washed and my apartment isn't falling apart. Lamenting not having enough writing time is not going to get my anywhere.

I don't want to half-ass it either - I want to put out the best book I can with the resources at my disposal. I need to give myself enough wiggle-room in my planning to allow for the unexpected, to give myself time to research, to dream and to edit properly. Sure, I could do a quick clean up when Crow is finished and slap it up on Amazon, but I don't want to put out something so raw. I'm giving myself an additional two months to do the appropriate re-writes, edits and hopefully beta reads to make sure the story is polished before releasing it out to you. If I can find the extra money to hire an editor (unlikely) I'll do that too, just to make sure it's ready.

Those are the big things I've learned so far. I'm sure there is more learning to do as I tackle the second draft and editing. I've been through critiques before, but I'm sure I'll have to strap on my thick skin for the beta-readers. It has been an awfully long time since I had anyone read and tear apart my work... sooo more learning will be in order.

As long as you keep learning, you know you're headed in the right direction.
Thanks for taking the time to read my rambles.

Nearing the End (More on Crow)

I ended up taking a week off of writing to work on re-building my office. My office has been a giant storage closet since we moved in and it's a pretty big project - getting it sorted, putting up new shelves, filing two years worth of papers. I'm only about halfway through it, but I felt my self-appointed deadline closing around my throat, so I got back to diligently writing this week.

I'm now on the home stretch for Crow Book One. I've passed 40,000 words and foresee only perhaps 3 or 4 more chapters before it's completed. This will make the first draft around 50,000 words, which is what I anticipated. At the rate I'm going, barring any unforeseen obstacles, it should be completed by the end of the month - right on target. I'll likely take a week off to do some visual and editing research the first week of April (plus it's my daughter's birthday that week, so I'll be fairly preoccupied) and then I'll begin tackling the next draft.

I'm incredibly excited about this project and the progress I've made in the past month and a half. It's been a long time since I ran a story from start to finish like this. It gives me hope that this undertaking will succeed and I'll have it finished and publishable by June 1st, as planned.

This journey has taken longer than I had expected - but I can honestly say that I'm am the happiest now than I have been in a long, long time. I spend the majority of my free time enjoying my amazing children. If you had known me 10 years ago, you'd understand what a shocking thing that is for me to say. I've never been one to pursue the traditional route on anything. When I'm not frolicking with my munchkins, I'm creating all the time. Even when I'm not writing: I'm painting, I'm planning, I'm making things. And I think about the story all the time - on the train, in the shower, when I'm putting my kids to bed.

I can only hope to continue like this from now on.

For the rest of my life.

That's all most writers want anyway, right? To wrap themselves in their creativity and dwell there for as long as they are able?

For now, I'll take it one day at a time.

It's time to write.

Until next time,

Crow Book One - Progress and Updates

As I stated in my last post, I didn't get much done this past week due to being sick as all hell.

However, I did manage to get a nice bit of writing done on Crow, as well as some research. So, without further ado:

I have now surpassed 30,000 words on Crow Book One and am about 2/3 of the way through the story. This is excitingly good news, though I'm still not certain if the book / series will end up being a bunch of novellas or short novels. I am a notorious underwriter - breezing through the who, what, why, where and dialogue in the first go to get the story out while it's still fresh in my mind  - and then going back later to flesh out the details. It is highly probable that the story will grow longer on my first round of edits as I fill in all the blanks. I already know that the first chapter is going to need a complete re-write. I've also started putting together the outline for Book Two since I now know the characters more completely and have a clearer picture of where the story and conflicts are heading. At the rate it seems to be going, I hope to have the First Draft completed by the end of March.

Once I've started working on the edits I plan to start posting small snippets of it on the blog. I'm not very good at explaining my stories (I know, weird for a writer who can't properly explain themselves), so you'll probably get a clearer idea of the story once I do that.

And now... back to writing.

Hack Attack

I want to apologize first for being M.I.A. all week.

Last Wednesday my daughter came down with a nasty cold and I came down with it 24 hours later. Of course, once I was sick, the baby came down with it soon afterwards. It has been an odd week, especially once my cold morphed into a horrible sinus infection - it's kind of hard to think coherently when your head is banging like a bongo drum all day long.

I logged in this morning to post my update on Crow, only to find that my Wordpress site was crawling with pop-ups and adds. It seems the site was hacked, so instead of getting my post finished and my writing on Crow done, I spent the better part of my morning doing virus scans and manipulating files and blocking the IP addresses that were trying to access the site. It's been a mess and a nightmare but I think I've managed to get it all cleared out (if not, please let me know!)

I'll try and post the Crow Update post as soon as I can. Hopefully, we won't have this issue again *rollseyes*

Dark Days

I found a copy of the documentary I had been looking for - "Dark Days".

It's about a group of people who were living down in the NYC subway tunnels, what the natives call the "Mole People".

I was working on a scene for Crow where our protagonist Denora and the mysterious Silas go down into the tunnels looking for a man they call "The Oracle" who lives down below the streets. I've been riding the subways since I was a child, though I have to admit I've never been into the tunnels (though I think I would, given the chance, just to see it for myself), so I needed some visuals to get the scene clear in my mind.

The documentary itself is very interesting - certainly worth watching. I was immediately struck by the use of DJ Shadow's music for the video - I forgot how much I loved DJ Shadow and had to go dig out my old CDs.

The mythos of the "Mole People" is a long running urban legend in New York - originally chalked up to being just a myth, like the alligators in the sewers. There were movies and stories written about deformed and mutated people living in little underground cities - the reality is much more depressing. Most of the people living down there are homeless - some with serious drug problems, some with unstable mental disorders. The idea that the subways are safer than the homeless shelters in NY sheds light on a problem that people in the city try to ignore. Yes, you see a lot less homeless on the streets and in the subways panhandling in the past several years, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.

The first real look into this world, revealing it to not only be real and not a myth but to be an actual societal problem happened when Jennifer Toth wrote a book in the mid-ninties called "The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City".

It's worth a read, if you're curious.

I found the documentary "Dark Days" HERE


The documentary follows a man named Marc Singer who moves down into the subway tunnels as a lifestyle choice and records his life and experiences with his "family" he finds down there. The film was released in early 2000 and by the end, AmTrak had issued them a 30 day eviction notice. I haven't found much else on the subject from recent years so I'm not sure how many people are still residing down there.

I love doing research, it's one of the most fun things about writing, especially urban fiction since I get to delve into the history and mystery of a place I know well, only to discover new things that surprise me.

Happy Watching!

Whatchu know 'bout Crow?

I figured, since I've been working so hard on the Crow story that it was about time I tell you a little bit about it.

Firstly, I called it a "Seasonal" series because of the way I have it set up. The story arc is divided into four books. I plan to put them out one every three months (if you do the math, it's 4 books in a year) so basically, one per season. I intend to have the first draft of Book One finished by the end of March, giving me the months of April and May to edit (and work on Firechild in the meantime) with an estimated release date of June 1st. I had intended to make it a novella series, but seeing how Book One is growing, there is a distinct possibility that they'll end up being longer than I had originally thought.

My husband has already made the cover for the first book but he thinks he "can do better", so until he is happy with it I won't release the cover design.

Secondly, Crow is hard to categorize. It could be considered a urban fantasy with a smidgen of paranormal romance. The main character is 17 when the story starts so it has aspects of YA but I'm not confident it would fit into that genre due to content and my flagrant use of profanity and adult subjects. We'll have to see what you think when you read it (and you will read it, right? Because I think it's freaking awesome so far and I think you'll really like it too *nod nod*)

The story is set in New York City - my beloved crazy metropolis.  The main character, Denora, finds out that her childhood best friend has died and that her three brothers have mysteriously disappeared. To make matters worse, she thinks she is being followed and everywhere she goes she sees black crows. When it starts to feel like her whole world is falling apart, she encounters a beautiful and secretive man who claims to know the answers. He introduces her to a world she never dreamed existed - one where rats can talk, people can read minds and an unlucky object can doom an entire family.

*****

Here is the current blurb (it needs work, I know!):

Denora is a magnet for misfortune.

After losing both her parents by the age of 15, she and her brothers have had a rough two years. When it comes to trouble, it always seems to come in waves - especially for Denora.

Shortly after finding out her childhood best-friend has died, Denora’s brothers mysteriously vanish - all three of them - without a trace. And Denora swears someone or something is watching her.

Then a mysterious and alluring young man bursts into her life, offering clues to what happened to her family and introducing her to a hidden world of cryptic premonitions and deadly curses thriving in the underbelly of the city she thought she knew. Can Denora unravel the truth and save her brothers?

*****

There is magic, but not in the Harry Potter style wave-yer-magic-wand and things happen sort.

Well, there's the basics. I'll talk about it more in the future. If you want to know more (or have suggestions to make the blurb better) let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Scarlet

I have FINALLY gotten my new laptop, and may I say, I am so in love with this machine it's kind of creepy. She is absolutely perfect (for me, at least) and I love her shiny mechanical self so damn much I decided to name her - so, if in the future you read me referring to "Scarlet", it's not my new imaginary friend.

I went with a Lenovo Ideapad but the way it happened seems almost like fate. I originally ordered the Acer I had planned to buy and there was one issue after another with the order. After hours of issues I finally got the order to process, only to be informed an hour later that my bank declined it, not for lack of funds, but because they thought it was suspicious and suspected fraud!  I gave up and later that evening my husband went looking again to find me a laptop. When he found Scarlet my eyes lit up. Scarlet is all kinds of fancy and she has red backlit keys (so I can see what I'm typing when I get up so stupidly early in the morning!) AAAAAAHHHHHH so excited!!!

Here's a picture of my new darling: http://instagram.com/p/lAJMqHFBq6/

 So, she's here and I'm back in business. Right now I'm trying to accomplish the headache-inducing task of moving and organizing all my files. It'll probably take me all weekend.


In other Everyn-related-news:

I've been on a writing binge all week. If anyone has been paying attention (and I doubt they have), the wordcount listed on the blog for Book One of the Crow novellas has jumped up to 18,000. I am also beginning to suspect that the "novella" is turning into a short novel so I've raised the wordcount goal to 50,000. If it ends up being that long, I suppose it won't be a novella anymore.

And now, back to playing with Scarlet! Have a great weekend people!