Everyone else is making their resolutions, so I’ll introduce you to some of mine. Other than the old standards of “lose weight” and “stop biting fingernails” and the new addition of “get a job”, the rest of writing-related.
- Finish Lionheart draft by end of March.
- Finish The Circled Green draft by end of September.
- Write 20 000 more words for the Bones draft
- (In order to complete the previous goals) write a minimum of 10 000 words a month.
So yeah, those are the goals. The first 50 000 words of Lionheart are already with the beta, so she can get a good going on it while I write the last 20 to 30 000 words. The big elusive goal is “get Lionheart into shape so I can query it”, and given the encouragement I have received, I hope that will a) happen and b) lead to something more.
I’d cross my fingers, but I can’t type like that.
Over on the YA forum at the Absolute Write Water Cooler, we’re having fun with a little game: Your WIP In One Sentence. I have already posted my four up there, but I want to share them over here. They aren’t perfect, and they miss a heck of a lot out, and sometimes they seem long-winded… but it’s still fun.
LIONHEART: After he is killed and his sister kidnapped by the same magical force, Leander finds himself the champion of the force that resurrected him – the long-dead High Mage blamed for the destruction of their glorious empire – and in a battle three centuries in the making.
BONES: When Dinah Gillespie discovers that the dying can see the dead – and that there is a ghost in her attic – she makes it her mission to do one last good thing before she dies, and set him free by solving a murder that occurred over sixty years ago.
BLOOD BOUND: The only thing that sucks more than vampire boyfriends and brothers is murder.
THE CIRCLED GREEN: A woman with a mysterious past is eight years dead, the man she loved and left behind is convinced by his domineering mother to stop grieving and remarry, and their beautiful daughter is being pursued by a dark faerie determined to have her at any cost – this is what happens after a supernatural being gives up immortality in exchange for human love.
I start chapter four of Bones with Dinah lying on her bed reading and listening to music while Gregory sticks his hand through the door and waves it about in the hopes of catching her attention – as a ghost he can’t knock, and he does not know her well enough to simply walk through and say hello. Plus imagine the awkwardness if she was getting changed or something!
Anyway, just a bit of fun, plus a snippet of this WIP, can you guess what book it is Dinah is reading? 
On her lap was a book, read so many times every page was dog-eared and the words on the spine were barely visible under the many thick white creases. The book in question was comfort reading and her favorite in the series – it was not as fancy-free and youthful as the first two, nor was it as dark as the later ones. The right amount of darkness and light for Dinah, and with a bittersweet ending. Although sadly the little bit of hope that the ending had once contained was gone, thanks to having read the rest of the series, it was still nice to pretend that she was as free and flying high as the title character.
23 September 2009 Writing Bones
I have reached the 40 000 and 10 000 word marks for Lionheart and Bones respectively. Isn’t that awesome?
I think so!
Anyway, now that I have more than definitely reached the half-way point for Lionheart, and am about a sixth of the way through Bones I just need to be like the kitty below and reference Star Wars stay on target.
But in the meantime: Yippee!
While I’m not a fan of her music, part of Katy Perry’s tweet about the Kanye West/Taylor Swift VMA incident pretty much sums up the way I’m feeling about what I’m writing at the moment.
IT’S LIKE U STEPPED 0N A KITTEN.
I’m stuck at a point on Lionheart (39k mark too… what the hell?) and so I’m taking a break from it before coming back. In the meantime I am working on my secondary WIP, Bones.
Bones was always going to be a sad book where life/fate/the universe pretty much takes all its frustrations on the two main characters but as the story progresses I’m finding new ways to torment Gregory in particular.
Every happy thing that ever happened while he was alive is now always sent back at him as a weapon now that he’s dead. Colour, sound, touch, being seen by humans… all the little things we take for granted every day are taken and twisted into things that hurt him.
Being a ghost is not a fun thing at all, as you can see. I’ve rendered him completely and utterly impotent in practically every way. And all for something that was in no way his fault beyond the fact that he existed.
Right now, though, I’m turning the best thing of his life into the worst thing of his death, and it hurts him more than anything else.
He remembered – and missed – Lillian at that moment most of all – her long curls, bright eyes and soft lips. He knew that her hair was blonde and her eyes blue, but as with green he could not quite remember what those colours were actually like. Just like how he knew her lips were soft, but not what softness felt like. That knowledge had gone with the way she felt in his arms and the way she said his name.
This is stuff that has to happen but it’s painful to write. If my betas’ reactions are any indication, it’s also painful to read. But I have to do it. As much as I hate to do it, I have to stomp all over Dinah, Gregory, her parents and everyone else over the course of the book. And although I have yet to cry, I am pretty sure it will happen at some point, as I keep on writing and stomping.
18 September 2009 Writing Bones
Writing is one of those things that you have good days and bad days, and you can sort of describe it in terms of walking/running. Some days you can go dashing across the playing field with no problems, and the next it is difficult to put one foot in front of the other. But just because the creative juices aren’t flowing and making it easier for you doesn’t mean you don’t write at all that day. Keep going.
Sadly, I suck at taking my own advice sometimes. But sometimes I don’t, sometimes I keep pushing forward even though I am only capable of baby steps. As much as I love starting a new project (a little too much, at times) looking at my wordcount just makes me go, “Ugh, this totally sucks” and “This is going to take forever!” *whines. Up until about the 5000 word mark or so, and then it’s all, “Yeah, woohooo!” and so forth.
Well guess what? Today I moved past that wonderful first mark with Bones. 
So hooray!
Another piece of good news is that the final round of editing for Blood Bound has just reached the 2/3 complete mark with the completion of chapter twelve. Six more chapters to go, and then one big old run through once again to see if there is anything we missed or anything that needs to be added. I know that my wonderful beta, JK has one suggestion about a certain one-shot character who has decided he is now a thousand times more important in the grand scheme of things than originally planned. So that is one thing. More might pop up in the meantime.
Then it will be back to trying to write query letters. I am so looking forward to the prospect.
And on a third project update thingy, Lionheart is still very much in the early “let the idea blossom as I am walking about doing anything but writing” stage. Far, far too early to start writing things down, as I still need to do a heck of a lot of world-building first. But I love this bit, this mental scrapbooking for characters, costumes, places etc. and I am enjoying putting into practice the concept of using a wiki to organise my thoughts and world.
I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime keep an eye out on the progress graphs in the sidebar to see how I am going with Bones.
