Musical Influence: "Transcendence" Audiomachine (Epica,  2012)

I've been reading historical romance since before I became a teenagers. History fascinates me and has since before I can remember. The way that historians can wax poetical about war, famine, political strain in a way that keeps people intrigued is certainly some sort of art form. And to hear a country with rich history like England tell their side of the story (while an American listens in the background) amused me. But history is recounted in just one side of the story. Rarely can you hear all sides without exaggeration. This is why I made a list of places in London I wanted to see.






I've always wanted to take a stroll through Hyde Park. I'm a lover of the outdoors. I like to be surrounded by just the rustling of leaves and the tweet of birds. I love the sun beaming down over me and feeling like I'm alone. The sun was starting to set over the horizon, the air was brisk. Lovers held hands as they strolled down the paths and disappeared into mazes. Kids giggled as they roller skated past with their parents riding slowly behind them on bicycles.



In a bustling city, where people are constantly streaming by and cars are honking and zooming past, it was a place of solace and beauty hidden away for someone to stumble upon it.






I've always wanted to see Covent Garden as well but by the time I dallied at the pub where GPS met her across the pond twin, Yvette, and promptly made a new drinking buddy we'd drank the daylight away. So we headed into Covent Garden where the roads were lined in stone and the store fronts were lit up to entice patrons inside. I didn't get any pictures of the Royal Opera House or pictures of the lit up lined roads. I stared in awe at everything, soaking it up and storing it in my memory for later thought.



I'm in the middle of writing for NaNoWriMo and my fantasy story is based off legends and myths. I walked up to Stonehenge, the wind whipped around me. The magic of Stonehenge stole my breath away. There was something about stepping onto those hollowed grounds. I'm unsure I can explain it. To feel the grass beneath my hand, to step around the circle memorizing the pattern. How many people have done it before me? How many people stood in that same spot and fed their energy to the spirits. Awe-inspiring.



Have you ever wanted to visit a place you read in a book? Do you prefer to make up places when writing or use the actual city? To my NaNo writers, how are you doing so far this month?

Just a quick post to see how everyone is doing this month on their writing goals. Even if you've fallen behind don't stress out about it. The goal of April is to get yourself writing. Yeah, the pages and words are a good way to measure how far we've come in the month but that's not the point. The point is to do something we all love to do and that's write.

I'm not usually a pat yourself on the back kind of person but you probably need it. So take a deep breath, de-stress yourself from the ball of anxiety you've become after realizing you're not doing as well as you wanted to do and reward yourself. Writing shouldn't be punishment.Writing is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be an extension of our imagination onto page.

One of the exercises of NaNoWriMo is to just write. It doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with the story you're writing, the point is that you're writing. Your brain is thinking creatively. So if you're stalled on your story don't sweat it. We all go through these spells. Stressing about it will make it worse and then we start to stress that we're stressing over our writing. It's a vicious cycle.


So the goal for the rest of the month is to just enjoy it. Enjoy the time you do get to sit down in front of your computer or the time you get to pull out your notebook and jot down your thoughts and snippets. Remember how much you love to write scenery or dialogue and just write for the hell of it. I want you to succeed. You want to succeed. And you can do this. I have faith in your ability to create. Just have fun.

Go out enjoy the sun. Enjoy the wind buffering against your face. Smell the sweet flowers blooming. Go for a walk. Take a nap. Read a book. Do anything else but sit there and stare at your computer screen for hours.

Sin

Music Influence- a band called Hurt. If you don't know them, find them, love them, stalk them to a concert near you. Seriously. You won't regret it.

“Cold on the inside. In phases my lights die. Staring through ardent eyes. I love you, but I lied. Cold on the inside. In faces a smile dies. Staring through ardent eyes. I loathe you, but I lied.”

Cold Inside- Hurt (Vol. 1, 2006)

The first time I knew I wanted to write, it wasn't a story. I didn't have a story to tell. Or at least I didn't think I had a story to tell. I felt all this pressure inside me welling up. My brain was a jumbled mess of nothing and everything. My fingers itched to do something but I wasn't sure what. I didn't know it was the urge to create. To write.

I was a child who spent my energy running outside from dawn to dusk. If I was inside, I poured over books. I lived in my imaginary world. I lived inside others imagination, showing me things in the world I didn't know existed, or possible.

I ran through fields of overgrown grass and weeds, Black-Eyed Susans, dandelions and clover sweetened the breeze even on the hottest days. I lived in my makeshift world where I had a stable of unicorns and a winged unicorn was my personal best friend. The clouds always held shape and was easy for my eyes to make out the obvious faces staring down at me. The first summer after my eyes no longer had innocence and couldn't find the simple wonders in the world, my fingers learned a new world. My words painted what my eyes no longer saw. Short strokes on a blank notebook page. The only sound was the pencil scratching furiously. The sentences held no format. Punctuation was nowhere to be found, but I found something I had been missing. All that had pent up inside me in those years of pretending and wandering manifested into... something. I wasn't sure what it was. What I'd carved out of my heart sat roughly on this page. My handwriting wasn't neat. Nor my sentences witty and clever. But for a brief second I felt that little piece of happiness I'd been missing and hadn't known it was truly gone.

I saw a way on that page to truly live again.

But this had to remain my secret. No one could know of this. Read this. Discover this. This- manifestation of what was in me. No one could know but me. I just wanted my life back. The life of running carefree through the fields and staring up at the clouds. Of wishing on stars and believing the magic in the stories I read. If I could only exercise out what stopped me from believing, I could have it all back.

So I wrote. And I kept writing. I had pages filled with thoughts and fears burned into my mind. The loss and the pain and uncertainty poured out until I knew there was nothing left. My tears smeared the pen and wrinkled the paper and yet I woke up the next day filled with the same feelings. I'd never have it back- the innocence I lost. I'd never be the little girl running through the field and chasing butterflies, believing they were faeries guiding me into the faerie kingdom. I'd never be the little girl wishing on stars and believing the one that fell was the unicorn I'd dreamed for. The writing showed me I wasn't a little girl. I was never going to be that girl again. If I wanted to dream, I had to find a way to bring it to life.

And that is how I learned to write.

Do you remember the first thing you ever wrote that meant something to you? What does writing (or reading) mean to you?

Just a side note: The song above I reference was written by the lead singer of Hurt, J. Loren Wince, when he was just 13 years old. Reading lyrics, to me, is a lot like reading poetry. My first words were manifested into free form poetry. I think this is why I've always loved music and lyrics.

It's that time again! You probably don't remember last year when I decided that I was going to dedicate the whole month of April to a writing frenzy similar to NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month). That's okay 'cause I'm here to remind you.

In November us ambitious writers tackle the challenge of writing 50k in one month- 30 days of writing until your fingers feel like they may melt away from the bone. Your keyboard is so hot it's smoking and setting off your fire alarms. Your rear-end feels like its permanently one with your desk chair. You live off candy and soda and caffeine. And you forget what it's like to sleep. Or what outside looks like. But that's November. The euphoria you feel when you've accomplished the 50k goal in November is unlike any high you've ever had before.

April Writing Month is simple. You, the writer, set your goal. The fun of April is it's realistic. You can have a life. We all have lives outside of our computer. And what keeps people from competing in November is that daunting 50k goal. Setting a realistic April goal will get your fingers moving and creative juices flowing. This goal is not to berate you if you don't accomplish the “number or pages” you set out to do by the end of April. This goal is to get you in the groove of writing again.

I've been writing non-stop since I came back from my trip in late January. A change in scenery always does my creative brain good but this time was different. I felt like I had the chance to renew my passion for writing. I've missed feeling like I have something to contribute as a creative writer. And I want to inspire everyone else to do the same. Let's participate in Apriwrimo together! Let's start something, finish something, revise something, build something- I know you can do it. Set a goal and get ready to write in April. (Or read! Hey, readers, how about setting a goal for books to read in April and maybe you could share them with us writers in May?)

My goal for Apriwrimo?

Finish my prequel of my urban fantasy world- 25K by April 30 at 11:59pm.

I'm 25k into it right now. I'm constructing the world to break it down. I'm building the background and the characters so I know how to introduce the alternate world to my heroine for the first time. I'm in the process of teaching myself how to write in third person. After much debate with my inner self, the story is much better suited for third person. My voice, however, is not well suited for third person. So the prequel is an opportunity for me to stretch and warm up before the main event.

How about you? What's your goal for April?

So we've got this lovely revamped ship, with awesome new digs by our revamp artist Carrie and Terri assisted (because Terri is awesome at these things). Getting a new home, pulling back into our first port and taking a look around with more experienced eyes puts me back into memory lane.

But I'm not going to rehash a blog that I wrote five years ago or anything for this occasion. No, I think we should take the day to consider how far we've all grown in the past five years. Five years ago I wouldn't come out and say that before I start a story, I need to outline and see where it's all really going. Five years ago, I was just starting out with the writing thing. I had no direction. No clarity of where I wanted to be.

Things that have changed for me from the time we were in our old port (blogspot) to our new port (URL) and back to our beginnings:

1. I have a grasp on outlining.

2. I can write in actual format.

3. I have this insane need to write the entire story before posting. (Of course, this applies only to my fan fic writing.)

4. I love all my heroes. And most of my heroines. This was not so much the case when I first started writing originals.

I'm sure there are other things that have changed for me in the writing world but as of right now, this isn't just about me. This is about you- our readers, our fellow writers- and how you've changed since you've become our blog mate, our faithful blog readers and our friends. So take today to tell us how you've grown. (And I'm sure it's okay to comment on how much you like our revamped look.) I can tell you it's nice to be “home”.

Music Influence: “Scars Align” Cyrenic (Dying to Live, 2011)

 

I spent a large amount of time traveling on Thursday from airport to airport hoping planes as if I were an Easter bunny tripping on sugar. Had twelve minutes to make a connection flight in Salt Lake City- don’t think I’ve ever run through an airport faster in my entire life. An airport is a world all to itself. When you're inside it's a complete different mindset. Even the most bashful of people will find their inner hellcat. You have to bite, scratch, claw your way into position to board the plane. You have to elbow and throw dirty looks at the guy sitting next to you taking up half your elbow space. And put up with the other person getting rip roaring drunk, which in turn, you have to get drunk to deal. Airplane courtesy is not everyday courtesy. It's a one man island. You've gotta look out for yourself and say screw the others. Leave them for the sharks.

But while I was doing all this traveling I had nothing more to do than read. And I’ve seriously been low on reading time lately. I’m three years behind on Melissa Marr’s faerie series and I absolutely love these books. The Fae world is a world within our own as the Fae walk the streets most humans are oblivious to their presence unless the Fae want the humans to see. There are a few humans who have the sight. The notion of something abnormal happening in the normal intrigues me. This is the type of Urban Fantasy I enjoy reading. The world within the world.

The world of mythical creatures inhabiting the world I know enthrall me. As if I were the one walking down a dark alley with enchanted eyes watching me, waiting to make a move. The world where creatures of the night fight with one another. The world where only in my wildest imagination things happen. This is essential when writing Urban Fantasy novels. Build your world around the one the reader can understand and relate to. I’ve read a lot of fantasy/paranormal books where as the reader I can’t relate to the characters or the world they live in. Either the explanation isn’t there for the world, or the creatures who inhabit the world are too strange and foreign for comprehension. This is a problem I have as a writer. It’s so hard to paint the right picture for your reader when you see it so vividly in your head but lack the worlds to properly explain it. And when you’re beginning to write a new world, you want to dump as much information into the beginning as you can possible pack. You want the reader to experience the world immediately, when actually; you want the reader to wade in slowly as if to test the waters. Too much information could spook off a reader from reading your really kick ass world you’ve built.

So what I want to know from my fellow readers and writers is how do you wade in? You don’t have to be writing (or reading) a paranormal/urban fantasy novel to see the world within the world. We all create our own world when writing. What’s the right mixture in the beginning of the world the reader knows and relates and the world you’ve built and created? What’s the best world you’ve read in a book lately? Anyone read any really good paranormal or urban fantasy novels?

 

I think about writing while I’m in the shower in the morning, conversations between my two main characters flowing like the water from the showerhead. Dreams are what give me ideas, thoughts, conversations, pieces to carry over into fiction land. It’s like acting out a scene before writing it down. One of those poetry in motion thingys. And for me, it’s perfect. I’ve always been very hands on, sticking my nose into everything. I’ve gotta see it done first before I can write it. So if I can’t see the scene, it can’t be written the way I want it and I’m stuck. But with dreams, anything can happen. Anything in your wildest dreams. And opportunity and imagination are the two best things you can have as a writer.

So, my question to you today is: Ever have those dreams that just stick with you? The ones that when you wake up in the morning and have you thinking about your plot and characters and setting? Do you use them as a guide for your writing?