Works in the Wings

 

 Do you know what I love?
   I love the luxury of flipping through my writing journal (after copying into it 7 1/2 pages of quotes from P.D. James Talking About Detective Fiction) and seeing all the starts to stories, scrawls of inspiration, and newspaper clippings from everywhere.
  I love sorting through a binder and coming across a detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline of Au Contraire, waiting for me if I am ever in need of an ambitious plot.
   I love remembering that story I began, Find Her, and going back to read the two chapter-scenes I had typed out and realizing that, gosh, this is a really good story. A really good one. And I might be about ready to dive into it, head-first.
   I love writing down new story ideas (Murder, Miss Snubbins), and finding title-ideas for sequels to Fly Away Home that I don't even expect to write (The Lobbyman's Belle and Maralie We Roll Along), but have pegged down just in case.
   I love reading the scraps of description and dialog I spread throughout the pages of the much-abused writing journal and remembering where I was and what I was doing when they came to me.
   I love looking at my old writing and admiring certain turns of phrase, certain word-choices that I am allowed to admire without fear of vanity because so much water has gone under the proverbial bridge since I first wrote them.
   I love listing all the ideas currently in the wings (including stories I don't really intend to write and realizing there is enough material here to keep me busy for years and years:

Driftfire (for the 5 Glass Slippers contest)

Au Contraire (historical fiction)

Murder, Miss Snubbins (romantic thriller)

Find Her (mystery/thriller)

The Green Branding (historical fiction)

Curvy Girls (contemporary fiction)

Jacq of All Trades (contemporary fiction)

Grey Goose Downs (historical fiction-ish)

No Mere Mortals (contemporary fiction)

Sentiment, Durrant (dystopian and thus, probably will never be written by me)

The Glass Half-Full {and a lemon-wedge} (inspirational fiction)

The Scar-Girl (allegorical fantasy)

Hearing, I See (undetermined)

Rockingham Shambles (mystery/thriller)

The Sirens of Baker Street (contemporary fiction)

The Traveler (humorous fiction)

Banbury Cross (historical fiction)

Madeleine (romance)

Butter-Boats (contemporary fiction)

The Lobbyman's Belle (inspirational romance)

Maralie We Roll Along (inspirational romance)

Gloamingswood (fantasy)

The Treasure of Riverly Manor (historical mystery/thriller)

  Twenty-Two titles, so that I might not appear so uneducated as to compared to Jane Fairfax. ;) Some of these starts I absolutely love and intend to write someday, like Find Her, No Mere Mortals (which already has 20k words?), Murder, Miss Snubbins, and Rockingham Shambles. The others are entirely up for grabs for the days when I am out of plot ideas. You'll notice that on this list I have quite a few mysteries; something I swore I'd never attempt again after Riverly Manor (at the age of 13) fizzled out. Well. I shall be more careful, but I don't see how I can avoid writing one at some time; mysteries have always fascinated me. Especially when Find Her is looking so terribly attractive alongside Murder, Miss Snubbins. Oh well. Nothing doing till The Baby is finished!

Yes. This is what I love: discovering I'm not anywhere close to running out of ideas, even though I might sometimes feel a bit disenchanted with current projects. And see, too, what a good thing it is to give your plot bunnies attention? If I chased after every story on this list (you'll notice I didn't mention The Baby because it is my current and ONLY project right now. pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasebehave) I might give a teeny bit of attention to the grooming and shaping up of something else, but I intend to finish The Baby, no matter what of a devil it is being. (In fact, soon as this post is done, I'm off to write) What are your works-in-the-wings? I'd love to hear about them!

"It's kind of an off-day for me.."

When it comes to writing, it can be hard to keep your head in the game. If you're anything like me, your life is unpredictable at times; things like potting strawberry runners, working on top-secret money-making ventures, and wedding-season get in the way and it's easy to find yourself on the lame end of inspiration. The story-world that you worked so hard to craft appears to have lost its luster; your characters are stubborn, your plot won't move along, and you're out of the habit of writing at all, much less writing something readable. What's a writer to do? Here are some things that I've been using lately when The Baby needs attention and I find myself uninspired after having given all my time to Driftfire. (a novella-contest piece hosted by author Anne Elisabeth Stengl) I hope these ideas will help jolt you back into inspiration.

Keep Notes: Even when you aren't writing, you are living life. If you have eyes to see it, inspiration is everywhere; pay attention and you'll find many things to cultivate your writing skills. Write these things down and when you sit down to write again, you'll have a ripe field of what I call "small-sight": the little half-noticed things of reality that cross the frail line between stilted and vibrant writing.

Do Dishes: I don't think well while sitting still; for some reason the moment my body is completely still, my daydreams kick in and my mind is off on its own merry way which, sadly, never seems to junction with my WIP's. I know we've all heard it, but it's worth saying again: Agatha Christie swore by doing dishes to bring on a bout of inspiration. Maybe her point was because most people don't enjoy doing dishes so they'll feel like writing just as soon as they've begun the dishes. I like washing, however; proving her theory true, I put my mind to plotting out The Baby the other afternoon and ended with quite a few good ideas. For me, I think my creative brain is stimulated by doing something that doesn't require active brainpower but is productive. Sitting down with nothing to do is my body's signal to space out for a while. (Which, perhaps, is why I love to read so much.)

Watch an old favorite: Funny enough, one of my favorite things to kick me back into a good creativity-spell is to go back and watch a favorite movie: something that is so familiar to me that I can quote it forwards and backwards. Something that draws out the simplest, most important parts of me and brings them back to the light. Usually it's a movie I haven't seen for a long time, but that I love all the same.  There are some films that actually have an adverse effect, such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy; when I watch these, the hope of crafting stories that great seems a weak one at best. Some of the movies that work for me? The Sound of Music, Miss Potter, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, Little Women, and Roman Holiday as well as any of the Pixar films.

Write a letter: One of the reasons I keep blogs is because I find that writing fiction and fiction only is actually not that great of an idea. I can easily be tricked into thinking that I'm sick of writing (I know, shocking) when actually what I'm sick of is this particular aspect of this particular story. The best cure for this kind of ennui is a good foray into something logical that still stimulates the need/desire to write. Blog about something entirely unrelated to the topic of writing, or better yet: shut down your computer. Take out some paper and write a letter. Just putting the current events of your life or your recent thoughts into a tangible form is amazing therapy for the novel-weary author.

Work: We authors tend to think that our work as a writer is the only work we will stoop to doing. Believe me, I've been guilty of this. In our heads we're already well on our way to being the next Dorothy Sayers or Percy Jackson; only problem is, the world doesn't know. I'm here to tell you that getting your tail out the door and grubbing around in the garden or painting a dining room or whathaveyou is far more beneficial that you'd think. You might consider menial work below you: oh well, get over it. Even a few days of labor in a row with no writing involved can be better for your novel than three days of a 500-word plunk that you'll end up rewriting anyway. Trust me.

Play with words: Sometimes just being around the comfort of words is enough to inspire. Play Scrabble. Read a gourmet-cooking magazine. Cut up an old book that is falling to pieces and make something cool out of the pages. Doodle. Seriously - doodling is a legitimate form of therapy for those of us who can't bear to put the pen aside, but find ourselves drained of words.

What I mean to say in all this is that you don't need to panic: I'm busy with a contest-piece and monetarily scheming and feel a nagging in the back of my head that says The Baby needs work and I'm neglecting this blog and many other things. Oh well. I don't have to get my tail in a knot over the fact. Inspiration has hidden for a week or two, who cares? If I've learned one thing over the course of my years as a writer, it's this:

Don't worry about your inspiration: Yeah, it might be gone; but it's too arrogant not to come back.

A man of deepest gloom...

In the plotting/beginnings of writing Keeping Tryst, I have a clear idea of what I want my villain to be like, only I'm starting to see that Lord Peregrine Rouncewell and I will be going hammer-and-tongs to cooperate with one another. You see, he's rather a complicated beast.

In the land of Coombelynn there are two major ruling families: The House of Keeptryst and the House of Rouncewell. I'm still exploring back-story, but here's the main history of the whys and wherefores. The Keeptrysts and Rouncewells were once feuding families, but in an era of peace a new pattern of rule was set up: every three generations the ruling of the Coombelynn is transferred from one House to the other.
For the past two generations the ruling has been in the Keeptryst Seat. Lord Bretton Keeptryst is the First Lord of the House of Keeptryst and is currently the ruler of Coombelynn. As is tradition in this House, his reign and his fathers' has been one of merrymaking, pleasure, revelry, and ease. The land prospers under this gracious family, glad for a respite from the harsher, pious and legalistic rule of the Rouncewells.
But Lord Peregrine Rouncewell sees the country turning from the fearful, cowering holiness of his family's reign. He fears they are losing all touch with piety and holiness and the pursuit of such things. In addition, Lord Peregrine is in love with Bretton Keeptryst's pledged bride, the Lady Merewald. He is tempted to kill Bretton himself to keep the land from falling to further ruin and to make reparation for all the revelry and loosening in the land with a strict regime of militarily enforced piety:

Were Bretton Keeptryst not the First Lord of the Coombelynn, Lord Peregrine himself might have taken his chance with the pricking of him. He’d like to see a bit of that proud red blood flowing outside of that proud red body. “You may keep the Lady Merewald,” Lord Peregrine said, bending low over his mount’s neck so Bretton mightn’t see his scowl. “She will prove witching enough, I have no doubt, to ruin the whole of the Coombelynn.”

-Keeping Tryst

So when a certain catastrophic something happens to Bretton while on a hunt, Lord Rouncewell sees it as fair judgement from the Lord on Bretton's pleasure-filled existence. He does nothing to save this young man and instead returns to the house, feeling avenged. He demands the Lady Merewald do her duty by her countrymen and marry him, that they might repair the country.

There is more. Much more. But I have fallen into a quandary that I'm sure will prove quite interesting in the formation of the plot.

Y'see, Lord Peregrine is not intentionally a villain. He is bound up in generations of tradition, legalism, fear, and desperation. He sees the Keeptryst family as a genuine threat to the inhabitants of Coombelynn--the people he desires to protect and lead. So in leaving Bretton to die in the forest Lord Peregrine truly believes he has done the right, just thing in ridding his land of the House of Keeptryst. After all, there are no male heirs since Bretton had not wed Lady Merewald yet, and now the House of Rouncewell can tighten the reigns again and return Coombelynn to the sorrowing, straining land it was two generations back.

There are two sides to Lord Peregrine that--I believe--make him quite an interesting villain. He murders a man (for all intents and purposes, that's what he does) while believing he is behaving righteously. He forces a land into misery, poverty, fear and trembling--and believes he acts aright. He forces a woman who does not love him to marry him, believing he has rescued her from a life as the wife of a reveler and a fool. And yet for all these things, Lord Peregrine is becoming the villain of this book.

...rather sad and interesting, I think. I've always liked a villain I can sympathize with! :P

A Feeling in my Bones

Naturally, as The Scarlet-Gypsy Song nears an end I begin to think of my Next Project. The Traveler will not be it. That book is a fanciful, whimsical book--it shall not succumb to being pinned down as a W.I.P. It wants to be worked on in spurts and darts and dashes and so it shall. Madeleine is not thrashed out, nor is Rockingham Shambles. I am not done with research for my French Revolution novel. So what's next? What will jump forth from my pen in the months to come?

I am not certain yet.

I am not certain, and yet I have a sort of Feeling in my Bones. This feeling has nothing to do with children, strangely enough. It has everything to do with this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this scribble I did up last Fall.

I have an idea something precious might come out of it all. :)

"Shake me up, Judy!"

Hey everybody! :) Rather than repeat myself and sound redundant ( :P) I thought I'd just send you over to my Other Blog to check out my latest literary-themed Christmas present that I made for a friend. Tell me how you like it. :)

"Shake Me Up, Judy: The Purist's Guide to Dickensian Cookery"

:) I had such fun rummaging through Dickens that it was almost not work at all! I rather wish I had a copy to keep for myself though. :D

“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.
“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.
“Nephew!” returned the uncle, sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”
“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

 ~A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Of Thunder And Lightening

I am still in the planning and researching stages of my French Revolution novel, and I have promised myself I will not write a stitch of real writing until I've finished. I can have that much self-possession, can't I? However, I can still work on characterization, and here we are with a glimpse of the villain of the novel: Renaud Tremaine. As he is perfectly capable and more than willing to do the honor, I will let him speak for himself. Merci, Citizen Tremaine.

 “Bah! Lost another hundred livres at cards. Mon Dieu!” The speaker slammed the door behind him and cast himself, prostrate, on a chaise lounge nearby.

“I would not swear by that name if I were you, Jeanclaude. The Committee of Public Safety mightn’t like it. There is no God now, save the Goddess of Reason.” Renaud Tremaine’s lip curled in disdain for the fool before him. He laughed, the bitter tones mocking yet challenging the young man before him. Jeanclaude took a lace-edged handkerchief from his pocket and with great deliberation polished his monocle.

Tremaine fastened his gaze on Pierre Jeanclaude, inspecting him like a butterfly on a pin. Every detail of the young man’s person was captured, memorized, and scorned by Renaud’s dark eyes—eyes that, did they reside under hair a different hue than that of a winter's sun, could have been called “fine.” Beneath the pale shock of curls, Renaud Tremaine glared at the world from the brooding depths of his eyes, with the unearthly effect of lightening and thunder.

Jeanclaude was a fool, just like every other weak-willed “patriot” in Paris this summer. Renaud picked at the stitching coming loose on his shirt-cuff and struggled to keep his passion from flashing forth in an oath and a blow to the face of the foppish Jeanclaude. But Renaud Tremaine had a reputation to keep up—a reputation as a rising leader in the Revolution. Cool, polished, debonair, ambitious: these were words that Renaud taught to cavort around him a dance of popularity. One misplaced remark, one hint of the passion crouching behind his thunderous eyes, and all would vanish back into the mist of obscurity he had risen from. Risen, like a phantom from a grave of disgrace, as his rivals liked to quip. Ah, but that was all changing. He had Citoyen Marjorie Larrieu on his side. He would not call her Sweet-Marjoram, as the enamored Parisian youths did. Bah! Sweet! She was a vixen if ever a woman could be, albeit his cousinship to this self-same Marjorie. He liked her—ah, of course he liked her. They were cut of the same cloth, that Marjorie and him. She, with her quaint witticisms and pretty airs, like a petted peacock; he with his aspirations for power and homage. Neither had reached their full potential yet. But together, and if no blundering fools like Jeanclaude came in the way, they could reach a height as of yet unattained by anyone. Marjorie and Renaud Tremaine, holding the reins of Paris in their collective hands. Feeling the emotions of the people quivering up the lines, able to turn the country any way with their supple fingers.

Renaud’s fingers shook and he clenched his fist to keep them still, casting combined thunder and lightening at the empty face of Pierre Jeanclaude. No, he had nothing to fear from that corner, he was certain. Marjorie loved herself too well to stoop to a union with such a swine. He would woo her and win her, and Paris would be in his hands. A happy thought, indeed

Character Creation. :)

So today is my 19th birthday. :) But that wasn't what my post was about. (I think my sister re-titled this blog in honor of the day though.... :)

I wanted to explore what makes a memorable character. I know I've written on this topic before, but I've been thinking a lot about it recently.

What is it about some people in books that captures our fancy and makes them come alive in our imaginations?

Is it their name? Their personality? The way they speak?

Whatever it is, there is no doubt that the characters are what makes your story. You might have a brilliant plot, carefully built and written, but if you do not have people, you have nothing.

I know I have written time and again about how much I love Charles Dickens' writing. I truly believe that his greatness lay in his characters, not only his intricate plots.

Charles Dickens did not only pay attention to and cultivate his main characters. Of course our protagonists must be strongly portrayed, but it is the side-line characters that make the novel.

No one can forget the poor law-clerk, Guppy, in Bleak House, or the nonsensical but loveable Edmond Sparkler in Little Dorrit. It is not easy to get the evilly debonair Rigaud out of your imagination long after you have put down the book, or to stop thinking about jolly Mr. Pickwick and his travelling companions.

So in the remainder of this post I will discuss how to build unforgettable people for your books.

Step One: Pick a personality-- What is it about your character that makes him who he is? Is he a complex person or a simple guy? Is he ridiculously melancholy or the life of the party?

Make your decision and build off of it.

Step Two: Give him a touch of oddity-- Something that makes this character stand out from all the others. It could be the way he pronounces certain things, (Like Dickens' Samuel Weller who switches around his "w"s and "v"s. :) or the way he walks, or something he loves doing that is just a little strange.

Step Three: Choose a name-- I have always found the phone-book to be helpful in this step. Flip through and find random names. I've come up with a good many strange ones in this way that I might never have thought up before, like the name I've reserved for some selfish banker someday somewhere: Bardwulf Becker. :)

I think naming characters is one of my better points. I love choosing the perfect name for my people. One of the servants in an unfinished novel was named Essie Doris after a street in our town. Another is the wild Ann Company whose father, Flounder, named her so that it would look clever and business-like on a library card. (Flounder & Co.) I like stretching to the limits on crazy names for people.

So those are the three main steps I can think of right now, and as I'm out of time I will let you all suggest anything I have missed. :) What sorts of tips do *you* have for creating characters?

Where'd You Get Your Inspiration?

There are many different ways that people say they get inspired...for some people, it's a picture they see, or a person they meet, or something else like that. I've been inspired to write something from those things, or maybe just a random thought floating around my mind. The inspiration for "A Mother for the Seasonings" came from a thought that it would be neat to have a family all named after herbs. Doesn't sound like much, but I was able to build a whole story off of that! So what sorts of things inspire you?
One thing I've decided to do, is to write down ideas whenever I get them...almost like a writing scrapbook, where I can scribble ideas for poems, stories, whatever, and go back later to choose one to try out! Several famous authors have done the same. In fact, Lucy Maud Montgomery came back to one of her writing ideas that said, "red-haired orphan girl comes to live with elderly couple" (or something along those lines) and from that simple description came the beloved Anne of Green Gables! :)
An idea may not seem like much when it comes along, but write each one down, and see what comes of them someday! :) ~Rachel

Good Grief This is So Terribly Boring!

Okay. Time for a renovation of this blog! It is so boring that it has put all 14 of my followers, and myself, to sleep! ZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!! Anyone who would stop by must be bored to death! :) So I pledge one thing: I will earnestly try to make this an interesting, informative, frequently updated blog. Okay? Writing is a passion of mine, so why is this blog so...unpassionate? Because I haven't been paying any attention to it! So here we go! I will try to update this 3 times a week, and you all get to pick the catagories...okay?
Here we go! Pick at least 3 please! All you followers, and any visitors who just look on! :)

An original new poem I wrote
Fun facts about famous authors
Thoughts on books I've been reading
Updates on m writing and stories, including excerpts of them
Character studies of my characters, including backgrounds of who I was inspired by to create them ;)
Writing tips
Quotes from famous authors
Bios about famous authors
And any other suggestions?
I hope this helps, along with the new background for freshness!!! :P
-Rachel