This Blog Will Self-destruct in 10 Seconds
Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to write a Romance novel. Don't be fooled by how simple this sounds. There will be many who work against you. Your greatest enemy is the evil I.E. She's sly, unpredictable, and as mean as they come. She'll throw up road blocks, make you doubt your skills, and leave you crying in your rum if you let her.
Then there's I.E.'s second in command, the Regulator. Don’t let the taped glasses and scrawny frame fool you. The Regulator is the keeper of *the rules*. He'll tell you over and over these supposed rules cannot be broken. You must stay strong and keep writing. Rules were made to be broken. Break them and move on.
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security once you've silenced the Regulator. Because the next villain is always waiting around the corner. The dreaded Big Chill. The Big Chill wants everything cold. No sexual tension. No sizzle. No sex. Whatever you do, don't let the Big Chill win. Close the door on the sex if you must, but don't lose the sizzle or the mission is over.
This mission requires all of your covert skills. You must get inside your character's minds. Know what they think, how they feel, and most of all their greatest fears. You must test them, torture them, tempt them to touch the fire. You must raise the stakes. Throw obstacles in their way and make them choose between fear and love.
Yes, you see now why this is your greatest and most difficult mission. Love is the prize. The most desired and illusive treasure in the world. It's fickle yet steadfast. Fragile yet resilient. Free yet always comes with a price.
Now, do you accept this mission? If you do, how do you plan to defeat these evil villains. And once these villains have been slain, will you be ready to face the next wave of terror – the Editor, the Publisher, and the Reviewer?
Books by the Crew
24 comments:
Since it's early Monday morning, I thought I.E. was Internet Explorer at first until I figued out it was Internal Editor.Lord knows my Internet time sucks the brains right out of me.
I have not written in a week. I only have a month left of vaca to finish my MS. Gotta go, but love your fun post!
That was a lot of fun to read--and I appear to be too chipper for this monday morning... must go sulk or something...
I just ignore all those evil-nodogooders.
Thanks for checking in this morning, Maggs. And sorry I confused you there. But you're right, the internet is also a forbidable villain at times.
Hope your trip was good and I can't believe you only have a month left. Really? I still have almost two full months before kiddo goes back to school.
You know, the idea for this blog hit me Saturday morning and now that I read it again, I wonder what the heck I was thinking. It really doesn't make much sense, does it? LOL! Oh well, I'll try to do better next week. Glad you were entertained though.
Terri, we go back the last week in August, but I guess I'd like to be finished by the middle of August if at all possible. Right now, it's iffy. Summer always seems too short. We had an extra 8 or 9 days tacked on in June because of snow days, and we have those stupid teacher workshop things before the kids come back. I especially love when they get all the district employees in the h.s. auditorium and try to get us to do a "wellness" activity. It's 4,000 degrees and the bus drivers are not amused.
And I wrote 300 words since my last post here---it's a start.:)
Write like the wind, Maggie. Write like the wind!
And I imagine summer never feels long enough. I don't live where we deal with snow days, but here the kids don't go back until after Labor Day. However, they don't get out until the middle of June either.
My kiddo has only been gone for three weeks and she's ready to come home. The poor thing is bored and tired. Not a good combination when you're nine.
Ter - this was hilarious! :) Good job!
I have managed to avoid at least I.E. and the Regulator, though I'm not sure until I hit revisions if I've missed the Big Chill. Sometimes when I'm writing I feel like it's boring, so I am sure there are plenty of spots where the BC jumped in there and mucked up my book.
And I must admit to some very serious anxiety about the last wave of terror. In fact, some nights I stay up just worrying about it. We'll see, I guess.
*LOL* This is my favorite blog you've done. Very hilarious! And very true! (Wrote absolutely nothing this weekend. THOUGH I did watch North & South, the American version, over the weekend. I've realized my tastes have changed. When I was a pygmy, Patrick Swayze's character was THE character: tragic, heroic, ROMANTIC; and now I'm like, You know, George is so much better. *LOL* Noble, happy, and loyal--and not in love with the first unavailable woman he finds.)
Okay, back to the topic at hand:
Enemies of the Crown (because every writer deserves a CROWN, or a tiara, right? Right.)
The dreaded Internal Editor--check, currently plaguing me.
The Regulator--doesn't plague me so much, but probably would if I actually WROTE STUFF DOWN.
The Big Chill--hmmm. I'm not sure if I have a lot of issue with this, after all, I adhere to that law of Sexual Tension which is this: anything that is forbidden is that much more desirable. And being Conflict exists to keep us from what we want, the forbidden can be easy to achieve. How to keept this up AFTER you finally cave--and caving at a time where the audience is still interested in getting them together, that's the tough part.
You're way overcomplicating this sexual tension thing. LOL! The tension is the *awareness*. Whatever physical or emotional response the characters have to each other. As long as you give them reactions, usually unwanted ones or ones they don't understand, you're doing fine.
I like this crown business. I bet if I wore a crown while I wrote, the words would spew onto the page. LOL! Now I need to find a crown...
Marn - Trust me when I say, you have no worries about that Big Chill. You gots sizzle galore! Hey, that sounds like a Bond girl, doesn't it? LOL!
And that second wave of terror? Just picture them in their underwear and you'll be good. *g*
Having just watched (and loved!) Get Smart, I can actually see Maxwell Smart held hostage by these things and trying to talk his way out of it.
Max: "You won't get away with this, you fiends of fiction. You'll never prevent me from completing my work! Why, at this very moment, you are surrounded by one thousand sizzling hot moments just waiting to jump on the page."
Big Chill: "I don't believe you. We have your sizzle locked in a closet."
Max: "How about one hundred black moments guaranteed to leave my characters broken and pining for one another?"
I.E: "Bwahahaha. Of course not, you fool. We assassinated your conflict builder last week."
Max: "Would you believe a mocha and a wireless laptop connection at Starbucks?"
Great post!
Sarah
Sarah - that's hysterical! I don't even remember what I was doing (besides talking to myself) on Saturday morning, but the first line came to me so I started writing. It sounded like fun so I went with it.
You'd think I'd been drinking, but no. :)
I loved Get Smart--this definitely sounded like it!!!
Uh, I'm still trying to get the hunk with the flag out of me spyglass when I see the very vicious looking Daryl Hannah with an eye patch. I can't get that image out of my mind. You tempt me with muscle then flog me with horror, Terrio. Ye wench!
In all honesty, I'm horrifed because someone like Daryl Hannah stands over my shoulder watching everything I write all the time. ARGH!!!
I really like the comparison to Get Smart, Skirbo. You rock!
Kathy - so sorry to give you a lovely dream then follow it up with a nightmare. LOL! But doesn't Daryl look exactly how you picture that mean I.E.?
Remember Kimberly's words! Vomit out the first draft. You have to keep going, I.E. be damned!
My on-going battle with my IE is so venomous that I don't have time to worry much about the others. I have tried every trick other writers have suggested to silence my IE, but she is a mean bitch who refuses to be silenced. She's been snarling at me this morning about my sentence structure. I rewrote one paragraph four times. :(
Janga - I'm pretty sure with all of us together, we can beat that bitch into submission. You're writing is on a level above most everyone I know. How could she possibly find anything wrong with your sentence structure?!
I say we put a hit on her.
My internal editor is also a mean spirited bitch. Try as I may I still go over and over the same sections. That's not to say they suck but in my mind's eye they do. Add to that the IE's red-headed bastard step sister SD (self-doubt) and it's time to take off the gloves. You would not believe how good I am at bitch slapping that nasty one down. The Regulator does come into play now and again.
The Big Chill only rears its ugly head when my characters are so sick and tired of each other, that just the thought of a finger feathering its way from her ear to the valley between her breasts is enough to give both my hero and heroine shivers of disgust.
Grrrr.....
Great blog, Terri. Off to slay my characters. Oh, and never mind when I read someone else's flawless prose. It's enough to make me hurl every writing implement I have in the house right out the window!
But I'll never do that because they've been cooperating of late and I can actually see the words 'The End' looming on the horizon. They look pretty small from here but at least I can make them out!
PS No offense to any red-headed folks out there from either side of the blanket. One of my heroines has red hair - at least for the moment...
Santa - how could I have left SD out of the equation? Though that's where the "crying in your rum" part comes into play.
Whoohoo for THE END! Big or small, it's there. Reach for it!
skim/pack/write skim/pack/write....
LOL!
Sorry, Santa is reading something I want her to read (see: skim) faster. I'm trying to help her along.
No probs. I accept the mission!
Love conquers everything!
I write for love. I write about love. I write hoping to create love.
Stuff editors and publishers and reviewers. Stuff regulators and the Big chill. Stuff them all.
I write for enjoyment alone and the thrill of the chase.
Well played Terri...nice innings! :D
I've always liked Q's perspective!
And I'm reading as fast as I can on screen!
Q - You're the man! Stuff them all. I love that. LOL!
Santa - Yeah, that's the bad thing. It's a wonder me eyes aren't crossed!
Q- Every time I see your name I think of the Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond film. Can't wait to see it!! :-)
Terrio- My I.E. is also like Mina Jojovich's character on Zoolander. She stands behind me spitting, "K-Mart!"
Aye, Aye. Tis a two-legged beastie, a squid, a daughter of a double-eyed whore from the reeking gutters of Rotterdam, a ruffler, a plague of the seas, a mountebank, and an imp of Satan my I.E. is. Ah-harr!
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