Writing Process Blog Tour

Welcome to my stop on the Worldwide Writing Process Blog Tour.

I was invited aboard by epic speculative fantasy author C. D. Sutherland, author of The Dragoneers series. Thanks, Charles!

You can read about his writing process HERE.

What am I working on?

I'm currently working on Book 2 and 3 simultaneously for my Dragonsfyre series.

Book 1 -- Bound by Dragonsfyre -- was the result of an online serialized fiction project where I posted a new chapter every week here on my blog A Piece of My Mind for a two-year run, beginning in April of 2010 and ending just before the book's official publication in May of 2012.

The good news is: it's taking me half the amount of time to get the next two books finished, but it would feel quite long if you're the reader waiting to see what's going on with Scorpius. Both traditional publishers and self-published authors have listened to readers who find it incredibly hard to wait a full year before finding out what happens next to their favorite characters in a series.

So I'm completing this section of the series before releasing Book 2 -- because Book 3 will release very soon afterwards.

I say 'this section' because I really enjoy writing about the characters inhabiting the Eighth Dominion. There are twelve dominions in this realm, and I'm now planning a sweeping series following developments in each of the numbered kingdoms.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Until recently, I would say that my work differed by its tendency towards very dark and violent tones. Also, that it didn't exactly fit certain genre conventions.

However, my Dragonsfyre series has released at a time when Game of Thrones has killed off almost an entire family line at the Red Wedding -- and on television. I hadn't categorized my dark fantasy series as YA, even though Book 1 is a coming-of-age story, because once we head into Scorpius' adulthood, things take a drastic turn for him. Yet Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series contains just as much violence as my Dragonsfyre world, so I'm re-evaluating how I've been marketing it and finding readers.

As for my Brotherhood of Blood vampire series -- at first I resisted marketing it as paranormal romance. It follows the convention of not tying up the story arc until the conclusion of the entire series, in the manner of the fantasy genre, as opposed to each title having its own conclusion even when part of a series, in the manner of the romance genre. Also, it retains my tendency towards a very dark tone, so I was actually marketing it as horror.

However, the plot is driven by a love story. Darker paranormal romance series have built a readership tolerance for unresolved endings while waiting for the series to wrap up. The challenging part of having a truly fresh take on things is: how do you describe these genre-defying books to readers? I'm still refining this for myself.

Why do I write what I do?

The quick-and-dirty answer is that I have always been a square peg in a round-hole world. I write hard-to-define stories because that's what I love to read and watch.

My TV viewing habits definitely reflect what I'm attracted to as far as genre: Supernatural, True Blood, Once Upon a Time, Agents of SHIELD (all technically contemporary but with the all-important addition of the supernatural or the fantastic,) Game of Thrones, Vikings, Downton Abbey. Aside from these series, my husband and I are big fans of TV series produced in other countries, such as Bednaya Nastya (Poor Anastasia) from Russia, Riget (The Kingdom) from Denmark, and The Great Queen Seondeok from South Korea. We always discover these series through serendipity, and then watch them either through an online service such as viki.com, or by ordering the DVD.

For the most part, as long as there are swords involved, with horses not cars, corsets not cell phones, and so on -- I'm attracted to it. There could be a storyline about a turf war, but if it was a contemporary story set in the lap of luxury between drug lords, I would probably pass it up. However, if it was basically the same turf war set during the Crusades between a Knight Templar and a disinherited Saxon lord, with a love triangle thrown in for good measure, I am all in. Believe me, I find this amusing about myself, but there you go.

Of course, there are exceptions. Tarantino's Kill Bill films are on my Top Ten list -- nothing of the fantastic involved in those (although you could argue some magical realism.) I do love science fiction. Straightforward historical is always a great idea (yet the closer the time period gets to present-day, the less I'm engaged.)

If I describe my Brotherhood of Blood vampire novel as a Dark Ages vampire superhero origin story, you'll see how my muse has gone for a giant mash-up between all of my favorite genres. The fact that a few reviewers have mentioned things like "Puts the monster back into vampire," and "[her] vampires are dark and dangerous" are why I was shying away from steering the book towards paranormal romance readers. Yet the entire story revolves around two lovers and their driving need to be together. I may be attracted to darker subject matter, but I'm definitely a romantic. A gothic romantic of course, but still...     

        

How does my writing process work?

Well, I would say that my initial exposure to other stories from the genres I love is really the first part of my writing process. For me this is more of a visual-and-auditory thing than reading other books in my genre.

I just soak it all in – the atmosphere, the lighting, the location, the costumes, the music, and especially the emotions from my favorite scenes. I’ll include my passion for ballet here, because many of the story ballets qualify as fantasy genre. Immersing myself in full-length ballets never fails to inspire my creative muse.

Eventually scenes will start playing through my head as though I have my own personal story channel in there somewhere. They just play out as though fully formed, but I have to pay attention and figure out what’s going on. Who is that? Why are they doing that to him?

I write out the initial scenes, and then I have to do some mental unravelling of the story threads until things start to make sense. This is usually done while I’m walking by myself, or when I’m on the bus.

At this point I used to start writing without trying to plot. Now that I’m working on two series, I have trained myself to make a Save-the-Cat sketch of the storyline before heading into my natural pantser mode (writing by the seat of my pants.) I suppose I should mention here that I always write at my desk with headphones on and music playing. Unless I'm out somewhere, in which case I write longhand in an old school notebook.

I’m also a veteran of five NaNoWriMo marathons, which I’ve discovered is key to unlocking the heart of my story. NaNoWriMo forces me to write for word count, which pressurizes my creative process well past my comfort zone. I keep writing within a scene for longer than I would normally stay there, purely for word count purposes – and this always leads to discovering things about my characters that would have remained hidden if I wasn’t doing NaNo.

This in turn requires weaving together two manuscript files – the regular one I’d been working on before NaNo, and the NaNo version. I find this part of my process very draining mentally, yet the shining-jewel scenes I get from this way of working is absolutely worth it.

Once I weld these together, I do an initial revision to make sure nothing’s missing and that it all makes sense. Then I give the manuscript over to several readers for initial feedback.

I do a second revision based on that, and then I hand the manuscript over to a professional editor. I do a third set of revisions based on her recommendations. At that point, the book is ready to go to the formatter’s before uploading to the various retail platforms.

Thanks for joining me for this Writing Process Blog Tour.

At this point I’m supposed to hand the baton over to three more authors. However, there is a good-news-bad-news thing about this sort of blog tour.

I asked quite a few authors to take part. The good news: all of the writers I know are currently writing to deadlines and didn’t have an opening in their schedules to take part in the tour.

Or – the writers I know had already taken part in this tour.

So to wrap up this Writing Process Blog Tour, I’ll introduce you to three of my author friends who have already posted about their writing processes:

Angels-and-demons YA author Shawna Romkey

You can read about her writing process HERE

Scottish historicals author Kate Robbins

You can read about her writing process HERE

Contemporary Newfoundland-settings author Victoria Barbour

You can read about her writing process HERE 

5 on Friday -- Set 199

Spinning Friday tunes since 2010...

For anyone who wants to join in, simply choose five pieces of music and post them for other bloggers to enjoy. Then check out the sets posted by the other 5 on Friday bloggers -- you can sign in over at Golch Central's Rambling Stuff.

I'm in the last two days of the November writing marathon known as NaNoWriMo, wherein crazy people write a 50,000-word first draft novel in 30 days.

This is my fifth year slogging through the ordeal. At this point everyone participating seriously questions their sanity.

However, from past experience I also know that pushing this far past my normal creative process always gives me amazing material to work with later.

So, as I head for the 50,000-word finish line, here are five tunes about writing.

1 - Every Day I Write the Book -- Elvis Costello

2 - Lady Writer -- Dire Straits

3 - Dancing in the Dark -- Bruce Springsteen

4 - Paperback Writer -- The Beatles

5 - If You Could Read My Mind -- Gordon Lightfoot

Thursday Thirteen - 256 - 13 Snippets From This Year's NaNoWriMo Work in Progress

As you can see by the badge in my sidebar, I crossed the 50,000-word finish line for this year's NaNoWriMo writing marathon last Friday.

At 7:00 pm. With 5 hours to spare.

Compare that to the first year that I did it, with 15 minutes to spare, chasing midnight!

Congratulations to my fellow NaNoWrimers, wherever you may be.

This week, I'd like to share a bit of what I was working on during that writing frenzy. This is straight from the NaNoWriMo unpolished manuscript, not counting a few alterations made to avoid spoilers.



From Book 2 of my Dragonsfyre series


Cast of characters -

Xaviero - we first meet him as a military cadet, then rejoin him as the captain of the guard for Lord Visigard and his family

Elysande - cousin to Scorpius' master, Lord Thibault, daughter of Lord Visigard. We meet her first as a vision appearing to Xaviero, then as a little girl at the Nursery which raises noble children, and later still as the highly-sought-after daughter of Lord Visigard

Scorpius - former falconer's apprentice, now lord's man for Thibault of the House of Pruzhnino

Thibault - second son of the Duke of Pruzhnino, noble family of the Eighth Dominion



1 - The officer pulled Xaviero to his feet, already turning to head for the door.

That’s when Xaviero was struck with a vision.

He always required touch to gain the sight, to see that which was hidden from most. The grip of his hand upon the officer as the man made to leave was enough to warn Xaviero that he must not let the officer open that door.

Dragging back upon the man’s arm with all his weight, Xaviero cried, “No, Sir! No!”

2 - He could feel the gravel digging into his legs as he knelt in this ancient forest clearing, could feel the coolness of the stone dragon against his shivering flesh. When he looked up into her gaze that looked at and through him, he knew once again that she was meant for him. The realization that he must wait for her burst through his body like a geyser.
 
Xaviero heard himself moan in the midst of his vision, and he twisted his head back and forth, trying to wake himself out of it. Yet he came to at the feet of his commanding officer and the dormitory steward, both staring at him in the chill light of dawn.

3 - Xaviero watched this odd toadying behavior from the officer and realized this new boy must be the son of a high-ranking noble. Heavy disappointment settled in his chest.

As the son of a decorated officer from a military family, Xaviero had a respected pedigree here at the officer’s training school, but he was outranked by any nobility from the start. His brief sense of finally having the chance at a friend and ally vanished among the greetings offered by the nearly-blushing officer.

Just who was this fellow, anyway? Keeping his head high and his gaze trained ahead of him in proper military form, Xaviero stole looks from the corner of his eye at his would-be friend.

4 - An eerie sensation raised the hairs on the back of Elysande’s neck. In the distance, a horrid sound of swooshing wings made her wish she’d never heard anything so large and terrifying. Her little legs ran as fast as they could, but the flap-flap of the enormous being dwarfed the efforts of all of them.

Nurse and the guards had only managed to herd the children as far as the little roofed garden house with no walls that Elysande liked to pretend was a palace. There was still all the lawns and the flower gardens to pass through before they got to the safety of the double doors that led to the breakfast room.

The massive flying thing hung in the air overhead, casting them all into shadow. Nurse and Elysande stopped running, since it made no difference now. They could never hope to get away from it.

5 - “You should have read the dragon signs.”

“There were none, my lord! It came from nowhere.”

“Dragons don’t come without signs!” Papa said, kicking the guard in the ribs, lifting him up with the blow to roll across the carpet of the drawing room.

Nurse pulled at Papa’s hand. “Please, my lord! It was I who should have seen the signs. I have more experience with them.”

Papa turned and flattened Nurse with one sweeping blow. He stood over her, shaking in outrage. “We are the closest parents here to the Nursery,” he said. “But we will not be the only ones here come to see whether we needed to collect the remains of our sons and daughters. If I were you, I would not be here to greet them.”

6 - “Who sent the messenger we intercepted?” Xaviero asked.

The man shook his head no, starting to whimper in expectation of the next cut. Instead, Xaviero stood and laid on a series of hard slaps across the man’s face.

With his second sight, Xaviero could see inside the man’s thoughts as long as he could focus intently on the person’s eyes while touching some part of the body. Reaching down to wrap his hand around the man’s throat, he waited for the prisoner’s eyes to open in terror.

Once he could see inside the fellow, Xaviero relaxed within himself even while maintaining his iron grip upon the man’s throat. He followed the trail of the prisoner’s mental barriers to locate the crack he needed.

He could see clearly what the man’s worst fears were. Easily done. So very easily.

Xaviero released the man’s throat and gave him a few moments to choke and gasp and fight for breath. Circling him slowly, Xaviero said nothing, every now and then stopping to bend his mouth close to his ear, but this time inhaling deeply as if the prisoner was a fragrant blossom.

The man recoiled from him, jerking in his bonds to try to keep Xaviero in his sights. Xaviero therefore kept one step ahead of his sightline.

“Who sent the message we intercepted?” he kept asking.

7 - He came to her in a surly mood, so that she was obliged to order him to her room later that night. It saddened him, but it was all worth it. He was very close to getting what he needed from the prisoner. He would do whatever it took to get the name of whoever sent that messenger they’d intercepted.

Whatever it took.

The look on his lady’s face when he arrived a good deal later than their agreed meeting hour was priceless.Taking a deep breath, Xaviero continued on into her chamber with his customary swagger. Yet his skin now washed over with cold bumps.

“You forget that we arranged an earlier meeting, Captain?” she said.

He bowed his head in acknowledgement but said nothing.

“If there was something of far more importance, then of course I must wait. But if you must know, waiting has put me out of sorts.”

He bowed at the waist like a servant. “Apologies, my lady.”

“I will accept your apology after you have paid for your insolence,” she said, turning on her heel and walking away from him. He knelt then, figuring it would be the best place for him to be once she turned back to regard him.

As though she knew he needed marks on his body in order to convince the prisoner to confide in him, Lady Elysande walked towards him to strike him backhanded across the cheek.

He straightened as much as he could on his knees, lowering his gaze yet keeping his head held high. No need to feign wounded pride. He was, after all, working to preserve her family’s place in the Eighth Dominion’s hierarchy.
 
8 - The torment was so extreme that often just the mention of dragonsfyre to a prisoner would yield results without even bringing the hard-to-get powder out of its holding box.

Her guard captain passed her the belt from around his waist, knowing the powder was in one of those pouches, and knowing that he was destined to inhale it only a few moments from now.

Perhaps they shouldn’t go through with this. Maybe there was another way…

Xaviero placed his hands over hers and nodded once. She crouched and opened the pouches, laying out the silk cloths, the vials on top of the silk, the siphons beside those.

Her captain walked the last steps to the dragon statue. He turned with his back to the stone form, beginning to undress with trembling fingers. Walking to join him, Elysande gently brushed aside his hands and finished undressing him, pulling and tugging and slipping his cape, his doublet, his tunic and leggings free.

There he stood, breathtaking in the moonlight. He knelt with his back to the statue at the base of the carved rock. Taking one wrist in hers, she encased it in the manacle chained to the statue.

Repeating the action with the other hand, she secured her captain to the base of the dragon statue, face out for the ordeal. He knelt in the moonlight, his eyes in shadow.

Turning away, she returned to where she’d placed the vials and siphons. She took up the first of many, as this ordeal wouldn’t be over for some time, once begun. When she turned back to her captain, the moonlight shone down on him as he waited bravely for her. The sight of so much courage humbled her.

If he had the courage, surely she did, too. Elysande took each step that brought her closer to her captain as if it were her last in this world. In her hands was the box containing the orange dragonsfyre powder, and once she blew that into her captain’s face, his excruciating ordeal began.

9 - The weight of the magicke circle deepened, and for a moment she was certain she could no longer stand. The sound that deafened her silenced.

Gazing across the invisible circle into the purple-blue eyes of her captain, it seemed to Elysande that she had always been here, in this timeless moment. She had always worn this gown, had always been this age, had always raised and opened her arms wide to embrace the magicke that was hers to command.

Yet something made her turn her head to her right. Looking for something that was not there, Elysande felt a great sadness.

In that moment she knew she’d always been waiting for the thing that was missing.

10 - She held her arms wide as Xaviero did opposite her, creating a circle of power she could feel but not see, not the way she saw her ribbons of pain. Her hair whipped back and forth as though she stood in a windstorm. The force of the magicke tried to push her down into the dust, but she held firm, stumbling at times but keeping her feet.

For a moment fear broke through, grasping at her like someone drowning.

She searched for Xaviero’s gaze, but his head was tipped towards the sky, his mouth moving with the words of the spell he intoned.

This was it. This was what they’d both been working towards for so many years. She would not let him down, not her dear captain. She wouldn’t let any of them down, not her estate, not the Eighth Dominion.

It appeared that Xaviero struggled against the same force as he reached for the pouch that held the vials of pain essence hooked to the belt running across his chest. His movements slowed as though he trudged through a deep river.

Elysande’s arms pushed down too low to keep the circle going. The pressure on both of them lifted as the energy faltered. Xaviero quickly grabbed the pouch but looked in alarm across the space between them.

She used every ounce of her strength to straighten her arms into the position he needed. Immediately the whirlwind that buffeted her returned. Xaviero withdrew the first vial. Elysande’s heart beat quickened as the moment they’d been working towards for so long drew close.

11 - It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the guard pulled his head free of the tub. As he knelt there fighting for breath and dripping over himself and the stained floor, his master refused to answer their questions. A tone of pleading laced Lord Thibault’s voice, which sent a spear of terror through Scorpius’ chest.

If he were the one putting his master to the question, he would clearly see there was a chink in Lord Thibault’s armour. Scorpius fought to stop the protest from rising in his throat, but the sounds came anyway before the guard dunked and held him again.

This continued for longer than Scorpius could hold his breath. His body snaked and surged against the guard but he would not let him go. A dim sense of shouting joined his own underwater cries before some of the water seeped into his lungs.

Then he slammed onto the stone floor, coughing and seeing stars.

Lord Thibault shouted and struggled against arms that held him back. The cell door opened and a figure entered.

“You,” his master said, all the fight going out of him.

12 - Lord Thibault kicked hard and threw the noble to the floor. The guards surged forward, taking hold of Scorpius’ master once more. Lord Thibault fought against them as though he had not been coming to this cell for weeks of torment, watching Scorpius suffer and growing more pale and lined by the day.

He fought as though he’d just arrived here, a wild beast of outrage even though he was outnumbered four to one, and now facing an attacker who could actually inflict harm. Scorpius watched his master in detached fascination, as though his lungs didn’t burn and his knees and shoulders didn’t ache.

The noble closed in on Lord Thibault, backhanding him so hard his master’s teeth glistened with blood as he smiled.

“That the best you can do?” his master said, eyes gleaming with fury.

“No,” the noble said, giving him a series of brutal punches to the gut that lifted Scorpius’ master off his feet.

13 - “I’m certain I shall.” Lord Thibault’s grin faded, his eyes shadowing with the truth neither of them spoke aloud.

Well, Scorpius would have no regrets. Not now.

“I want to thank you, my lord.”

His master shook his head, no.

“If Richolf were here, I would thank him, too.”

“He deserves your thanks, but not me.”

“I thank him with all my heart for fetching me to live at the falconer’s cottage, and I thank you, my lord, for giving me the life I dreamed of living.”

“But you dreamed of returning home, of being claimed. I know you did.”

“I dreamed it when I didn’t know who would have come for me. You know I never would have gone with him.”

“If you had told them back there in the cell--”

“We’ve been over all this, master. I would take it all again rather than align myself with that man."

“All of that hitting about your head must have loosened something inside of it.”

“I’m telling you I’m grateful. Now are you going to lay there among the grazer shit and take it like a man, or aren’t you?”

© 2012 - Julia Phillips Smith

Thursday Thirteen - I'm blogging at The Popculturedivas today

 

For a peek at my NaNoWriMo wrap-up for 2012, drop by The Popculturedivas for

Revisiting 13 Things That I've Been Doing During NaNoWriMo 2012 

Thursday Thirteen is at The Popculturedivas today

I'm blogging at The Popculturedivas today. Drop by for:


13 Things to Keep in Mind During Week 2 of NaNoWriMo

Thursday Thirteen - 253 - 13 Things I've Been Doing During Week 1 of NaNoWriMo

 



 



Participating in the yearly writing marathon known as NaNoWriMo has become a tradition for me and many of my writer buddies. It's a very helpful tradition that will result in the rough draft of a book for me - in this case, Book 2 of my Dragonsfyre series.

Here's what I've been doing during Week 1 of NaNoWriMo 2012: 

1 - Feeling the infatuation glow of rushing into the arms of my characters.

2 - Fighting the urge to write well.

3 - Loading a plot template into my manuscript document, one that I'd crafted a few months ago in preparation for NaNoWriMo. I'm not a plotter by nature, but the requirements of writing a political intrigue series pushed me out of my seat-of-the-pantser comfort zone.

4 - Writing scenes out of sequence in order to shake me out of my urge to write neatly and well. 

5 - Allowing myself to go deep. Writing more than I normally would allow, in order for a scene to take me somewhere unexpected.

6 - Watching footage of actors that I've 'cast' as my characters, in order to get the feel of their body language and sounds of their voices 'downloaded' into my psyche.

7 - Going without sleep. Having taken part in the 3:15 Experiment, a month-long poetry-writing challenge which requires participants to wake up at 3:15 am for the month of August and write poetry, I realize that for me, the hazy sleeplessness of NaNoWriMo acts as a way for my subconscious to take over and allow deeper creativity full rein. 

8 - Noting my word count publicly on Facebook and on my NaNoWriMo page, as well as on my local writing chapter's NaNo loop. Keeps the excitement of group participation front and center, rather than writing in the normal solitary writing cave of everyday practise.

9 - Cheering on my fellow writer buddies as they pile on the word counts.

10 - Watching footage of period dramas, fantasy films or fight sequences as needed, when I need to immerse myself in an emotion or a scene mood. 

11 - Go for a walk so I can think.

12 - Listen to music while I ride the bus, so I can run scenes through my head.

13 - Be willing to go wherever my muse takes me, regardless of my own preconceived expectations.

Are you taking part in this writing marathon? If you've never done one before, would you consider doing it next year? You might end up with a book at the other end.

2012 Movie Madness Challenge - October Report

Time for my tenth status report for the Movie Madness Challenge.

Here is my code for the films:

New to me - N
Repeat viewing - R

I'll also be including how I viewed the films:

DVD
VHS (yes, we have a lot of those, and a VCR)
Network TV
Pay TV
Internet
In theatre

The Phantom of the Opera
DVD
R

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
DVD
R

Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory
DVD
R

Bedazzled (1967)
DVD
R

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
DVD
R

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows I
DVD
R

Sixteen Candles
DVD
N

The Nightmare Before Christmas
VHS
R

 

An American Werewolf in London
DVD
R



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Total movies for October - 9

Total movies for 2012 - 80

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Movie Critic status!

Yeah, baby.

November is NaNoWriMo month, so I'm expecting my total to be a bit low next month. But that will give me December to hit 100 films before New Year's Eve strikes midnight.

I'm there. 

25 Movies: Movie Newbie

50 Movies: Movie Fanatic

75 Movies: Movie Critic

100+ Movies: Movie Master