Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category
Sometimes, all it takes is a little shove to get moving again. I received one today, courtesy of one of my NARWA sisters.
Jacqui Jacoby was a guest blogger over at Seekerville. The topic? Surviving the Abyss. In it, she told the story of her lost year of productivity, sacrificed to the health gods because of a still-unidentified virus.
Now, I’m no stranger to lost productivity. In fact, until about a year ago, I may well have been the queen of thinking “I need to write” and then doing absolutely nothing about it. But I’ve picked up my pace lately, and am now entering contests, submitting queries and — most importantly — writing almost every day.
At least I was going like gangbusters until recently. The last month or so, since I hit my goal of writing 100K words by NARWA’s November meeting, I’ve been slacking again. I’ve only written about 8,000 words through most of June and into July.
Part of it is because I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of weight loss, and for some reason, I can’t seem to strike the right balance between the healthy lifestyle and my writing life. When I’m focusing on one, the other falls by the wayside.
I’ve also been in limbo: I’m waiting for responses to queries and results from a contest I entered. I’ve started work on a brand new story (Bethany and Cody’s tale), but it hasn’t yet taken off. (I think it’ll help once I get them out of Chicago and onto the island, but before I can get them to the island, I have to do at least a little research — and I’ve been putting it off.)
But Jacqui’s post today gave me the nudge I needed to do some writing. I realized how important it is to take advantage of every opportunity. So while I was at lunch today, I handwrote about a page and a half — and now I’m raring to get back to the computer to start writing again.
Thanks, Jax. I needed that!
OK, it’s not a disaster on the same plane as the Gulf oil spill … but it is a major annoyance.
I’ve been editing “Beauty and the Ballplayer.” When I swapped my alternate beginning, I noticed the word count dipped below 50K. I thought that was weird, because I didn’t think it was that close to the line … but I didn’t think that much about it.
Until today. I edited through most of my MS and discovered that the last 30 or so pages aren’t there. They’re not in the version on my desktop or on my flash drive … or even the “backup” folder on my desktop, the one next to the regular folder I keep the MS in.
Thank goodness I have a printout. I’ll be spending some time this holiday weekend re-typing (and editing) my ending. Hopefully I won’t add in more mistakes than were in there to begin with.
A couple of weeks ago, the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog (one of my faves) was host to a sometimes heated discussion on safe sex in romance novels.
The author of the post, Kelly Fitzpatrick (who you might recognize from yesterday’s post), started the discussion by asking a few questions: “I ask myself, do I write to empower women or am I writing to entertain? Are we obligated to write responsibly? Or does the law of what happens in romanceland, stays in romanceland rule?”
There seems to be no consensus on the subject, at least among the Rubies and their readers.
Since reading that blog post — and the informative and entertaining comments that followed, I’ve been kicking this post around in my mind. It’s one of those things on my “I’ll do it when I get around to it” list.
Of course I believe in safe sex. In this day and age, when sex with the wrong person can end up killing you, is there anyone who doesn’t?
But do my characters practice safe sex? Umm … as they say in “The Wizard of Oz,” that’s a horse of a different color.
I have one set of characters (Brad and Erin) who just use a condom without any fuss or fanfare. I haven’t read through Cassie and Dustin’s story lately, but I believe they, too, just do it (condom use).
Then there’s Bree and Mike, the virgin and the pseudo-playboy. They’re both drunk when they make love for the first time, and their lack of protection doesn’t occur to either of them until weeks later. (First she realizes it, then he overhears her talking with her friends and thinks she’s pregnant.) It’s a huge part of the plot, because when he thinks she’s pregnant, he starts trying to get back in her good graces … after refusing to marry her just because she was a virgin.
When Kari and Damien, from “Blind Date Bride,” have sex for the first time, they’re already married, so no safe sex for them (even though they haven’t yet decided to stay married).
It hasn’t been an issue for Bethany and Cody either, since they’re already in a committed relationship when the story begins. I do know that Bethany has always been Ms. Safety in the past (and she does have quite the past), and Cody also believes in safe sex … but they’ve been dating for nine months and he’s thinking about marriage. Maybe I can handle the issue with a flashback to their first night together.
Meg’s already pregnant (by another guy) when she has sex with Matt, so condoms aren’t an issue for them, either.
She does question her judgment the morning after, when she wakes up alone because Matt had to leave her to go to practice. She wonders if she’s made a “monumental” mistake by sleeping with an almost-stranger. But she decides, “Nothing could be a bigger mistake than ending up pregnant and alone at her advanced age. And since she’d already done that, anything that came after had to be a step in the right direction.”
Drew and Lainy haven’t had sex yet, but they are teachers, so when the time comes, they should set a good example. (They’ve already set a bad example in other ways, though, so who knows?)
My stories are romantic comedies. And while the Rubies have some ideas about treating safe sex humorously, I don’t want to draw too much attention to the unfunny, unsexy side of my characters’ lives. Nothing ruins the mood faster than a red, flashing stoplight: “No glove, no love, buster!”
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: My characters “romance responsibly” when the plot calls for it … and when it doesn’t, they don’t. If that makes them irresponsible in the eyes of some, so be it. (I’ll just have to hope those some aren’t editors and agents who refuse to publish the story because of it.)
Again, I say, just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean I’ve been slacking.
No, I’ve been busy. I had to trim a five-page synopsis to a single page for the Harlequin American Editor Pitch contest. (Amazing what becomes important and what you suddenly realize can be left out when you have to tell the story in one tiny page.) The deadline was Monday and I shipped it off late Sunday night — or early Monday morning, depending on where you live.
We had our NARWA board meeting last Friday, then plot group on Saturday. As usual, plot group was inspiring. Of course, I had to head to to day job when it was over, so I lost that charge of momentum our meetings always provide.
After work Saturday night, I stayed up reading through Bree & Mike’s story until daylight started to seep through the blinds. (Then I slept until 3:30 p.m. Sunday, so I didn’t get to put in any writing time at BN before heading to work.)
When Monday rolled around, it hit me: The NARWA newsletter had to be done. So I stayed up into the wee hours putting it together, suddenly thankful the only Diet Dr Pepper in the office vending machine was super-sized. (This was about an hour after I used my Facebook status to complain that no one needed 20 ounces of caffeine at 9 p.m.)
So even though I haven’t been doing much blogging, I’ve been a busy little writer. Today, I finished a rough draft of a query letter for “Beauty and the Ballplayer.” I also spent some time tweaking the beginning — yes, I finally settled on ditching my opening line in favor of putting Meg and Matt in the same room on Page 1.
Now that I’ve brought you up to date, I’m going to get back to Meg & Matt. After I whacked out the first two scenes, it suddenly became 500 words too short to be an American Romance. That must be fixed.
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