The First Time
It was dark by the time I walked through the door. Seven o’clock. You wouldn’t think that was overly late but it wasn’t yet spring in Missouri and time hadn’t reverted back to borrowing time to make it light longer.
I dropped my keys in my purse. I had a major headache going on. I’d just finished Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich this morning before work and then ending was still bugging me. I went into the kitchen and flipped on the light, finding the book on my desk, I popped it open to the last 30 pages. It was a quick read for me. I had almost every line memorized. The way Ranger finds Stephanie crammed into an overhead cabinet. The way their eyes met. The way he kisses her bloody wrists. The emotion I felt in those few short paragraphs was killing me. How could she not be with him?
Matty popped his head around the corner and I closed the book with a sharp snap.
“You wanna watch a movie?”
“Sure.”
Blow was the choice movie. We’d seen it at least a dozen times before. We sat on the couch together in the dark, eyes focused on the TV and still my mind wandered. I couldn’t get that scene out of my head. I knew there wasn’t another book. I’d checked a million times at the library. No new book for a few more months. I surely was going to die with longing to know what happened next. What if they didn’t get together in the next book? What about that look? How could she not see what I see?
There was only one way to fix this in my mind. I had to just get it out. I had to write. But how the hell was I going to do that? I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even have a notebook to write on.
You know what will happen in the next book, don’t you? There it was. That little voice. Poking me. Prodding me. They won’t be together. What are you going to do then? What if he brushes a curl behind her ear and walks away. What if there wasn’t another book?
I had to fix this problem. It was driving me nuts. I had printer paper. As soon as Matty went to bed, I was going to find a pen and just write something. Who cared if it made sense. No one would ever see it but me. No one would have to know what I’d done. Surely I’d lost my mind. No character had ever come to life for me like Ranger and Stephanie on a page. There was something about the way they looked at each other.
I looked up at Matty sitting beside me on the couch and he happened to look down at me the same time. The glow from the TV was perfect on his smiling face and I knew why I was addicted. Matty was my Ranger. And I had to let Stephanie see that. Somehow.
That settled it. I had to do something. So I patiently waited. I fidgeted. I chewed on my thumbnail. I got up and walked around. I did the dishes. And finally, it was midnight. Way past our bedtime. I smiled all the way up the stairs. I thought of the way I wanted to write. What I was going to write. It was going to be perfect. And finally I’d be able to have some peace and quiet.
It was one am. I tossed back the blankets and crept down the stairs. The house was eerily silent in the hush of night and I was slightly creped out that I had the guts to walk down into the kitchen. I pulled a couple of sheets from the print and found an old ink pen. I slid into a kitchen table chair and sat there.
No words came to me.
I put my head in my hands. This was the worst feeling. I knew it was there. Why couldn’t I write it now?
“I glanced into the mirror. The black mini dress molded to every curve and made me feel slightly self-conscience. I could do this, I reminded myself. It’s not like I’d never done a distraction for Ranger before. Piece of cake, right?”
My god! What is that?! I read over it. “What the hell is this?” I ask myself. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just going to go with this until I get to the scene where she throws herself into his arms and kisses him like she’s never kissed someone before and swear that she loves him.
I put my ink pen back to the paper. My fingers flew through sheets of paper. My hand would cramp and I rubbed it out, a mad gleam in my eye as I tried to remember everything flowing through my mind. I finally got to the end. By no means did Stephanie throw herself into his arms. She backed him into a wall and wrapped a leg around his thigh. She drew him into her, pressed herself against every hard inch of him and brushed her lips over his. And as quickly as she did that, she walked away from him.
WTF am I writing? I asked myself, reading back over it. I was cross-eyed. Delirious. I glanced back at the microwave clock and rubbed my eyes. It was almost six am!
I shoved the papers into my desk, underneath the keyboard covered in three inches of dust and dropped the cover over them. I hustled back upstairs and fell into bed, asleep before my head even hit the pillow.
Eight AM comes very early to someone on two hours of sleep.
I wrote about 40 pages of Mission: Distraction (which wasn't what I ended posting and at this point wasn't even titled), before I ever had the nerve to type it up. I knew how to type. I was a computer major in college. I type faster than my brain can keep up. But there was something very intimidating about the computer. I felt very phony. And I dared to breathe a word of my obsession to my younger sister- who at the time was very obsessed with Sailor Moon (Anime) fan fiction.
“You should post it.”
“NO!” I shook my head violently side to side. “No way. I’m too old for that crap. I don’t know why I wrote it. Surely I’ll get sued.”
“No way, dude. There’s a ton of stuff out there.” She pulled up her email account. “Listen. What do you have to lose? I’ll email you the site link to that fan fiction site.”
I made myself sick on the way home. Post it? Was she insane? Clearly she was because she was in the same family as me, but I couldn’t post this. I didn’t own these characters. People would make fun of me. They would KNOW it was me.
Wouldn’t they?
When I was in high school, I was being a smart ass to my English teacher and in my goal for what I wanted to do after high school I put: I’m going to be on the top of the NYT someday.
My English teacher thought this was brilliant. I laughed in her face. I hate writing. Why would I ever write for fun?
What did I have to lose? Everything, I swore to myself. Okay so that might be a little melodramatic. But surely I’m too old to post “fan fiction” as my sister liked to refer to it as. And still, this writing thing was still in my head. I had to write something else. She was still talking to me. Telling me where she wanted to go next. Telling me what she wanted to do. This wasn’t good. I was obsessed!
I got home in a mood. The night was ruined. My stomach was churning. I might have sweated a little bit. I pulled up the email account and sure enough, there was an email from my sister.
Hey. I checked into that for you. You have to sign up for a penname
and there’s a three day wait. If you want to sign up, do it now before
you have a chance to think about it.
Buck up. Don’t be a chickenshit.
And at the bottom was the link to the site. I sweated it out for a minute. Palms sweaty. Mouth drier than the Mohave. Knees knocking. Did I dare click on it? I’m known for doing crap that I wished I hadn’t. I’m too impulsive for my own good. I mean, look where this reading thing got me! I knew I shouldn’t have picked up that book Janine told me too. “Just read this book. I know you’ll like it.” I shook my head politely NO. I’m not into those sorts of books. I told her. I like historicals. “No. NO. No. You’ll love this. Stephanie Plum is a riot. This is the eighth book. You don’t have to read them in order. I really think you’ll enjoy it.” Still I shake my head no. I hold this woman off for two years on this Stephanie Plum book obsession she had going on. And then I caved and now it has me getting up in the middle of the night like a thief and stealing downstairs to write like a mad woman until dawn.
So I click on the link. Fanfiction.net. It seems pretty harmless. There’s something like 10 pages to browse through of Stephanie Plum fan fiction. I read one. Someone rewrote the last scene in Eleven on Top in Ranger’s POV. I fell in love. I read this story about a million times. Never would I have ever thought to write in another POV. Stephanie felt natural to me, but this writer made Ranger come alive in front of my eyes. I felt his desperation. I felt his hunger for revenge. I felt his overwhelming moment of relief to find her alive. I was looking through his eyes and seeing the tears brushing along her lower lashes. Knew she thought she was going to die. Knew that she kept telling herself over and over again that he’d save her.
And in that moment I knew what I had to do. I went to the sign in page and filled out the necessary information. No one would ever know me. No one would know it was ME. I could do this anonymously.
No one would ever find out!
Wrong. I’m at something close to 35 fan fiction stories for Stephanie Plum two years later. Two full length stories under my belt, two novellas, and dozens of short stories. Fan fiction gave me the courage to try to write something of my own. Gave me the courage to reach out to other people, other writers and talk to them. Helped me meet women who I’ll never forget, who I’ll always be friends with, and gave me more sisters. Partners in crime.
So, I know that was long. I’m getting back into the old habit of long-windedness.
Tell me about your first time writing. The first time you wrote a scene you never thought you’d be able to write. The first time you wrote anything. Did it come out the way you wanted it or was it something completely different from what you envisioned? For our reading wenches, how about the first time you found a community for your favorite author? Did you have a hard time just jumping in there?
Books by the Crew
42 comments:
Ditto. *g*
The only difference is I didn't discover Fanfiction.net until much later. I remember the sick feeling in my gut When I posted the first chapter of Twelve to Tango on PFF. I could never shake Ranger and that look at the end of EOT. TTT started immediately after he pulled her from thE cabinet. I had to fix Ranger and Stephanie, even if Janet never will.
It still amazes me that Janet can't see that connection, or if she does see it, she's holding out on us big time...I just think it's a long shot in the dark now.
Ranger is the reason I write, because someday I will have a hero that walks off the page just as he does.
Great blog Babe.
PS..I think shaking FF is the hardest thing for me about writing an original. It's not an easy transition. I want to use the crutch of that world,and it's hard to build a new world from the ground up and make it yours.
Great blog, Sin!
I think I wrote my first story in 7th grade. It wasn't a romance. It was a story about a girl who got swept away into a candy world. Very exciting. *cough*
I wrote my first bit of writing (that anyone ever read) at Fan lit, almost 2 years ago. People pointed out POV problems, so I worked on that. People pointed out too much description. I worked on that. I read some books, I worked on stuff it said. I'm better now, but I'm still not "right" yet.
I doubt I'll ever feel like I'm right, I guess. :)
Brilliant. Annoyingly brilliant.
Until recently, I had forgotten about my first attempt at writing a romance novel. Maybe blocked out is a better word. Just like today, I didn't get very far. I was still in college so it had to be '91 or '92. It was a Western and I wrote the opening scene with the heroine playing poker with some pretty rough guys. You know, gunslingers, gamblers, typical Western stuff.
I only remember her winning (and her killer cool dress) and one of the other guys (the hero!) saving her when a couple players turned out to be sore losers. Something like that anyway. I need to find that journal where I wrote that. Could be fun to do something with it. You know, now that I know a little bit more about the whole thing.
As for finding your favorite author's site, as mentioned the other day, jumping right in is my forte. I had NO idea at the time it would bring me to here. It was July of '06, I was on the air late at night, and logged into Eloisa James' Bulletin Board. No JQ back then. They were talking about Mayne, a character I was totally obsessed with, so I gave my 2 cents. Someone named Elyssany welcomed me, announced I was now a Bon Bon and the rest, as they say, is history.
Thanks Ely. :)
Great story, Sin. I totally ventured off to fanfiction.net to read some of the Plum/Ranger stories. I really want to read the one from Ranger's POV.
Ummm...I don't even remember how I got onto EJ's board. All I know is that I will never regret it. Those ladies have been with me through some crazy a** sh*t. And now I have a solid group of friends whom I can count on for anything.
That was awesome, Sin!
I started kinda the same way you did except instead of re-writing a book I re-wrote a storyline on a soap opera. I kept saying to myself that I could do better than the current writers!
Then I started reading romances and all sorts of scenarios started popping up in my head. I kept looking for books that had these scenarios in them and couldn't find the one that told the story going on in my head. I read an author say in an interview once something along the lines of if you have a good idea for a story don't send it to me write it yourself!
So, that's when I started writing the romances in my head. I do agree with Lisa, though, that it's a lot easier to start writing when all the background stuff is taken care of already. I still have the stories in my head but it's harder than I thought to put them down on paper.
The first author website I found, I believe, was Julia Quinn's. She led me to an Eloisa James book which eventually led me to her site. At the time the current BB was not up and running, but she had a cool reader's section on her site where she encouraged everyone to state their opinions about certain subjects. I can't remember if I posted there or if I waited for her BB to get up and running before I had the guts to comment. And to quote that famous person TerriO, the rest is history!!!
Is there someone famous using my name? Huh.
I hope you realize that "annoyingly brilliant" part is meant as a total compliment. You never fail to suck me into these dang things. It's like I was sneaking down the steps with you?
Do you remember the moment you decided to switch from fanfic to something original? Did the characters show up and you had to write their story or did you decide to write original and then found the characters?
Do you ever worry that your male characters might start to look and sound a little too Ranger-like?
Lis, I remember the first time Stace dragged me over to PFF. I was like one of those country girls that has never been outside of her four way stop and landed in the Big Apple at Times Square.
I was the opposite. I had no idea Yahoo Groups existed until Stace begged me to join. I'd never seen so much fan fiction in my life. I know I must have lost myself in all the comments the first couple of weeks over there.
I think the biggest change I had to make was the world building too. A shift into a new heroine POV for me as well. My heroine is really nothing like Stephanie and to jump into a character who's almost the complete opposite. But I'm still writing in the same genre. You, on the other hand, are writing what you write best and you're gonna do just fine. You know you will.
Marn- A candy world! Exactly where I need to be! They didn't happen to have Oreos did they *shooting a look to Hellion* I can't believe you thought I didn't eat Oreos.
I can remember a story I wrote in the 7th. We had to do first person through the eyes of an animal. I picked a Siberian White Tiger who watched it's cub have it's head cut off. Yount (English teacher) did not like this. Not one bit. Wrote all about it in red all over my paper. But said my first person was good.
I remember fanlit. I came into the EJBB about the time the first chapter was posted. Of course, I had no idea what was going on so I just watched from afar.
And your writing is awesome Marn. Your attention to detail is one of the parts that sucks your reader in and holds their attention. And your dialogue is hilarious.
I still have hope her and Ranger will get together. We're stuck with crappy books until what? 15? 16? She has a couple more books before she has to fix it in the last 50 pages. And if she doesn't, well, we can always hock books 13-16, then have you and Sin write up the book 13 that should have happened and give it to the rest of us. No worries. Stephanie will have Ranger.
I can't believe Janet says she's a Ranger Babe, but she married a Morelli. I hope she doesn't intend to punish Stephanie because SHE didn't have the gumption to marry her own Ranger. Wuss.
Okay.
First time.
It was SO LONG AGO.
I mean...oh, wait, I remember the first story (it was more a novella) I finished. It was a big deal, since I'm so damned notorious for not finishing stuff: meals, books, paintings, crochet projects, sex...whatever.
This novella was a gloriously historically INACCURATE story set in the middle ages (probably around 1300s?) with knights and a princess (she looked an AWFUL lot like me) and a Prince named Prince Caspian, who gets mistaken for the new knight they were expecting. He's bored and likes the princess, so he pretends to be the mere knight. SHE is love with another knight, who won't give her the time of day (he looked a LOT like this guy who wouldn't give the time of day in high school, incidentally)--and she hated Prince Caspian, who she thought was an idiot. She also had a fairy godmother who lived in the forest and made her chocolate chip cookies. (She's a fairy godmother, she can whisk chocolate from the future.)
There is lots of fighting and kissing; and she gets kidnapped...then Caspian gets kidnapped as he's trying to rescue her...so she has to rescue him instead...and they all live happily ever after.
Hard to imagine this was a SHORT story, right?
This masterpiece is buried in my trunk with my other junior attempts at writing.
When I came to your house, Sin, your bag of Oreos was like full and you apologized for them being "stale" because no one was eating them. Oreos do NOT get stale in my house.
Ter- I love the Western idea! I once had a thought to write a knock off of Wild Wild West (with Will Smith) and insert the Plum characters out of sheer silliness. But I never wrote it. Instead I wrote about a Colombian drug lord who silently stalked my heroine and eventually kidnapped her, did all sorts of bad things to her and at the end, she's saved by her hero, Ranger. And then I wrote the next story in it all about her recovery and solving the mystery of his disappearance. And then she gets framed and I just go on and on for years.
You should pull that Western idea out and see what you can come up with now. I love the whole gambling scene with the girl in the super cool dress winning the hand of card and the hero steps in to save her.
PS. I know what you meant. You meant I was annoying. I totally get it. :)
Di- Lemme see if I can find it. It's an older story. I think I have the link saved.
PS. I could tell the story of how I made it into original fiction but it might get longer than my actual blog. LOL
Irish- Isn't funny how you start out sometimes. I watch soap operas and sometimes think to myself, OH I so wouldn't go there. It would be much better with this plot line. And then I go off on a tangent while watching the show. LOL
Hellion I love this attempt! A Prince (whom I adore) and a princess who looks like you! Sounds like a mad love story. It can't be that bad.
PS: They were the mini Oreos because I told myself if I got the mini Oreos I could have twice as many and have half the calories (Good logic right?) but I hated them. I'm buying oreos for this weekend. Are you still coming over on Friday or have you nixed that idea?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2465156/1/Six_Hours
Di, I hope this link made it through. I'm pretty sure this is the one. I'm going to read it and make sure. ;)
Thank hon. I wasn't fishing for compliments, ps, though I do appreciate them. LOL!!
Um, there weren't Oreos. At least not that I remember. Mostly hard candy. And though the little girl liked the candy world, she missed her family and wanted to get home. (awhhh.... LOL!)
Now that I think of it, Oreos would have been a good addition. Yum.... And they don't go stale in my house either. LOL!! I really like the kind that are covered in chocolate. What an awesome idea. Whoever thought that up in marketing needs a gold star.
Preston's shirt arrived yesterday! I think I'll take a half day on Friday; I believe we're going to see Indy 4 Friday afternoon (if Holly will TALK to us, so far she hasn't been talking to us) so I'd have to leave early if I did come over.
Hell, I might still take the whole day off if they let me. Not that I'll make it to your house before noon regardless.
I can't find the chocolate covered oreos anymore. They've taken them away from me. Totally worth $4 a box too.
I'm going to work until noon. I'm having mapping issues with this new turnover to NPI's and the deadline is Friday. So I'll be at work until noon. *insert lots of four letter words* But I'll leave at noonish as long as I can get the clearinghouse to work with me.
Hello! Are you going to tell us what Preston's shirt says? And I have your HP poster. Remind me to send that out.
I haven't found these miraculously chocolate covered oreos yet. Will need to fix that.
Marn- I know you weren't but you needed some. No self destruction today.
And double Awh's to the little girl who lived in a candy world and wanted to go home. You're so sweet and wholesome. No telling what I would've wrote. LOL
I think chocolate covered oreos are seasonal. You can get them at Christmas. Of course, you can MELT CHOCOLATE on the stove/microwave and dip the Oreos yourself. It's not like you're making the cookies from scratch.
Sin--you would have written about a child who left her sister in the woods.
Oh, good, no worries on the Noon Front then!
Terri: the shirt says: "Sex Instructor: First Lesson Free"
Nice.
They have the chocolate in microwavable bowls now. You can dip strawberries and all kinds of things. I swear, the food industry is trying to destroy civilization one thousand fat grams at a time.
Anyone else picturing that kid game Candy Land?
I've seen those. I don't like my chocolate diluted by extra trans fat (shortening)--and go straight to the chocolate chip section. Plus it's more environmentally friendly to melt it in your own bowl. (Because I'm so green, you know, and not just a chocolate whore.)
Purist.
When I melt my chocolate chips, I add butter. Makes it smoother, but not that icky taste of shortening. YUmmmm....
My roommate in college liked the oreos covered in white chocolate, but I admit to not liking white chocolate that much. It's like a pale, unworthy imitation of its thicker, richer, better sibling.
I know, awwh about the girl wanting to go home.... How embarassing, huh? LOL!
Wow, Marn, you're serious about your artery clogging.
Damn straight. It's a serious topic and something none of us should take lightly.
:)
I have time now, I think I can type up a quick jaunt about my foray into original fiction.
I was sitting at the stoplight to turn left by the library. Anyone who's driven in this area of Columbia knows this stoplight is the longest known to mankind. It's the last stoplight before you get into major downtown. It's usually backed up for miles. And every morning I sit through this light atleast three times. It was a Indian Summer day. By this time, I'd met Hellion. Talked her ear off about fan fiction and books in general. And she'd just introduced me onto the EJBB.
"What do you mean you can't shoot me? You have a gun. Just pull the *f'in* trigger!"
Not only does this conversation go on through the three times through the stoplight. It's an all day affair.
Now, usually this type of conversation wouldn't bug me. But this wasn't Stephanie's voice. And it was sarcastic, dry, full of that "I double dare you" type attitude. She kept talking about a twin who'd drowned. A mother who couldn't stand the sight of her. About being away for 10 years. So when I got home, I wrote a bunch of notes for it.
I figured, I have no idea what's going on but how am I going to work this into a chapter where I'm sending Ranger away?
The next night, a Saturday, I fall up the stairs and break my wrist. I'm out of commission for six weeks. At least.
Then on the EJBB there's a contest going on. The Crime channel on cable is running a contest for the most unusual murder. I could do murder. I had a little over a month to compete. But with a broken wrist. 10k. Normally 10k is a nights worth of writing. It took me every day of painful typing to write up something. This was back in the day before I knew what writing an original entailed. I enlisted a girlfriend to help me and I had all these ideas. Some PTA murder won it I think. Of course, my original is nothing like it was 1.5 years ago. I still may have that version somewhere.
Ter- I don't worry so much about Ranger bleeding through my male characters. Ranger exerts lots of leading alpha male characteristics I adore, and my lead hero is ex-SF sniper but now works for the FBI in Washington DC. The SF thing is never brought up. But my heroine knows he's badass.
"I don't pretend to know what Ruiz does. I just go with the flow and try not to step on his heels when he pushes me behind him. If I had a conniption each time he tried to protect me I'd have to shoot him and listen to him whine about it for the next two to three months."
Thank god my heroine is nothing like SP. I'm too smartassed for that.
I think it all depends on the writer and the type of genre you're writing in. Ranger is always in the back of my mind because I want my readers to eventually feel that sort of connection I felt with JE's characters. But as for his manerisms, pattern of speech, mystery? Ruiz is more like a sex starved, over protective, bossy male. Or as I like to refer to him- a man.
And I realized this morning in the shower that Ash is a blonde. That real dark shade of blonde with really really vivid green eyes. How did I not know this! Eek! A blonde! Crap!
And I agree with the chocolate thing. If I'm going to make dip chocolate it better have butter and lots of chocolate chips. I'm not a shortening kinda girl.
I love when you talk about Sadie, Ruiz, and Ash. They all sound so cool.
A blond. Now there's a shocker. hehehe
I love Ruiz. I love Ash...I want this book written. WRITE IT, or I'll sic Dee on you!
Oh, and I remember that contest entry. It was so good. Didn't it start with a bedroom scene? What am I thinking of? LOL! I'm sure it was yours and it wasn't Steph & Ranger.
Marn- Too bad they don't sound so cool in my head. LOL
I hate blonde heroes. Except for Hardy Cates.
It had a bedroom scene in it between Ash and Sadie. The famous "I hate you" sex scene. Which has been cut and won't be used until later on in the series.
And there is one Sadie story before that one. Back when I wanted Sadie to work at the local paper so she could meddle.
Hellion, I swear. I'm working on it.
I have no idea how they don't sound cool to you.
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