Slippery little suckers

One piece of advice writers often get is to understand their process. Good plan. Trouble is, processes shift and change with each book. I've had books that have roared onto the page like a freight train, books that have come at a steady slog, books that have fought me, books that have come in bits and pieces like a mixed up jigsaw. Whenever I think I have a vague idea how my stories will work, they shift.

The current wip has mostly been coming in bits and pieces and not really showing me its hand. I knew something wasn't quite right as I could never quite see the last scene but figured I'd get to the end and work it out from there. In the background, I've been turning it over in my mind, trying to see a different angle. Seems that worked, because last night, the story woke me up at 1.30am, telling me the last four scenes and a whole lot about what I needed to tweak. So I wrote for a while in the middle of the night then got back to sleep. And now the muse seems to be saying that the discovery draft is done, we have enough of an idea and onwards to the next. Never done that before...I mean my first drafts are horribly talking head-ish and there are often some unfinished scenes and chunks but this is more like that than ever before. Plus I haven't actually written a few of the last scenes. But what the muse wants, the muse gets so onwards to the next draft we go. She's even kindly provided a rough synopsis.

Stories. They're slippery little suckers. So are writer's brains. You've just gotta hang on for the ride!

Revising a soundtrack

I've posted before about soundtracks but after my last post, thought it might be interesting to look at how my soundtrack changes with subsequent drafts.

My first pass at the soundtrack is fairly instinctual, I grab stuff out of iTunes and put it in some sort of order. Things get added or dropped and re-arranged as the draft progresses.

This is what my draft one soundtrack looked like for Lily's book.

1. Delicate - Damien Rice
2. (You Want to) Make a Memory - Bon Jovi
3. Be Bad - Lowrider
4. Elephant Love Medley - Moulin Rouge soundtrack
5. Joey - Concrete Blonde
6. Syrup & Honey - Duffy
7. Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy (this was added during the process!)
8. Angels - John Farnham
9. On Your Shore - Enya
10. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica (this was added)
11. Your Song - Moulin Rouge soundtrack
12. Up to the Mountain - Patty Griffin
13. Miss Sarajevo - George Michael
14. The Closest Thing to Crazy - Katie Melua
15. Who Wants to Live Forever - David Garrett (this was also added)
16. Criminal - Gotan Project
17. Crazy - Icehouse
18. If This Is It - Newton Faulkner (added)
19. Same Mistake - James Blunt
20. Heal the Pain - George Michael
21. Llorando - Angelo Badlamenti (Mulholland Drive soundtrack)
22. Night and Day - John Barrowman (De-Lovely soundtrack)
23. Gravity - John Mayer
24. Inquisition Symphony - Apocalyptica (added)
25. Tragedy - Brandi Carlile (added)
26. Two Gods - Attrition (added)
27. Sex On Fire - Kings of Leon
28. Red - Daniel Merriweather (this was the last song I added)
29. Beyond the Call - John Farnham

There were a couple of others early on that got deleted because they weren't working but I can't remember what they are. I use the soundtrack slightly differently for each book and this one was lots of listening to one particular song on repeat for various scenes (probably because I was doing lots of Write or Die sprints and one song on repeat seems to work better for sprinting right now) though I did listen to the whole thing as well.

To do draft two, I then cut the list down to the songs I was using most or felt really fit the book well. And re-ordered them.

Draft two looks like this:

1. Same Mistake - James Blunt
2. Be Bad - Lowrider
3. Elephant Love Medley - Moulin Rouge soundtrack
4. Crazy - Icehouse
5. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
6. Circus - Britney Spears (new, and oh god, I am sick of this song. Lily loves it though, no idea why)
7. If This Is It - Newton Faulkner
8. Two Gods - Attrition
9. Who Wants To Live Forever - David Garrett
10. Tragedy - Brandi Carlile
11. Water And A Flame - Daniel Merriweather (new)
12. Red - Daniel Merriweather
13. Pleasure and Pain - The Divinyls (new)
14. Angels - John Farnham

Oh and there was some E.S Posthumus used for a fight scene that I never added in.

I'm currently contemplating draft 3. At this point, I think Water and a Flame will go, Almost Lover might go. Superman by Bon Jovi will be added. I might re-instate Beyond the Call. And I possibly need some more instrumental/evocative of the world music though I have no idea what that is. We'll see what the girls want as we get into it. At least it's not the same five Dixie Chicks songs ad inifinitum like my Witch Book *g*

Melodrama

I have a sneaking suspicion that my heroine is being melodramatic inside her head. Right now, the muse keeps throwing up songs that belong to her soundtrack and they're all pretty much tragic heroine/lonely ingenue songs. At least, on a positive note, at least three of those suggest she is at least falling for the hero even if she thinks it's doomed *g*). It's going to be fun moving her through to the point where she can have a grand happy love ballad at the end. I'm imagining there's going to be some angry stubborn chick music before we get to that point.

Luckily my hero is well up to the task of digging in his heels and refusing to take no for an answer until she sees the light.

Heh heh heh. Should be fun.

Open for business

Every writer has themes and issues and things that attract them to the ideas they have. Ways they execute those ideas. With my paranormal/urban fantasy hat on, I'm finding that I'm drawn to open worlds far more than closed ones. (An open world, for my purposes being one where the supernatural element isn't a secret and closed one where it is. Harry Potter is a closed world, the muggles don't know about the wizards. Something like X-Men is open, everyone knows there are mutants). As a sweeping generalisation, I'd say that until a few years ago, a lot of paranormal romance dealt with closed worlds but as urban fantasy has really taken off, open worlds are becoming more common.

There's nothing wrong with one or the other but I prefer the tensions in "what happens when you throw x and y and z together and they have to deal" to the tensions in "we have to remain hidden". Maybe it's because I read so much fantasy growing up but I like the "what ifs" and "how does that change things" of warping our world by throwing various critters and powers into the mix. It's more interesting to me than "we're a big mysterious secret and have to keep it that way". YMMV : )

I do have a couple of closed world ideas but I was thinking about it the other day and I think part of the reason they're still in the idea pile, even the one with the completely killer opening scene that I adore, is because they're closed worlds and that just doesn't make the girls prick up their ears quite as much. Hopefully I'll figure out how to change that at some point. Because they're both cool ideas.

And now, here's tonight's progress report.


Progress - Lily

New pages - Five (I've hit 90 pages, woohoo. Closing in on that first hundred and probably about a quarter done with my draft)
Intriguing things - Sneakiness
Annoyances - Low annoyance factor tonight
Linear/non-linear - Non
Music - Soundtrack
Location - The desk. Word and Think.
Taking care of Mel - Post work catnap to restore the brain.
Muse food - Reading about gorgeous messed up red headed boys in Corambis and Julie Anne Long's The Perils of Pleasure.

Random shower snippets

I don't know about other writers but the girls like to send up odd story snippets and lines of dialogue and bits and pieces at weird moments. The shower apparently works for them, probably because there is no way of writing down what they're saying. This morning was apparently time for a random waltz through a number of wips. Here's a selection.

WIP 1: I think Lizzie should press her to take on an apprentice for the tech stuff. A younger guy. A gamer. Brings back all the bad stuff but she needs him while she's stuck.

WIP 2: Perhaps the auction house would be a good short story on its own. Also you've gotta mention she's using the Earth Tree at the castle. Me: What's an Earth Tree. Oh. Right.

WIP 3: The princess goes a bit mad. Maybe a lot mad. Bad princess.

WIP 4: Son of a god.

WIP 5: Orange VW. At the garage. "My mom bought a pumpkin for a car."

Back to WIP 1: Also, they suggest therapy. And tell her you can do it virtually now. "That's just weird enough to be true."

WIP 6: She's in the car with the killer. Put her in hotpants. She'd hate hotpants.

At least it's rarely boring in my head.

And so it starts

The christmas whirl that is. I've pretty much finished the shopping but have cards and decorating to do. The socialising is well and truly underway, kicking off with time with the folks to celebrate their birthdays (with yummy coq au vin and wine). Made the christmas cake (apparently we are committing store bought pudding this year, quelle tragique). Only two and a bit weeks of work left before two weeks off (yay!) Spent the weekend with much pondering of various wips and listening to soundtracks and thinking but not much actual committing words to pages. But that's kind of normal, the girls are cooking something up and hopefully there'll be some time over the next month or to see exactly what it is.

Friday was hot enough that I had the airconditioning on and finally changed over to the summer weight doona (probably about a month later than last year). Which of course meant that Saturday and today turned cold again. Ahhh, Melbourne.

Word by word

Long time no blog. Sorry but there was a bout of gastro (stomach flu for the US readers) that didn't really bear discussing last week and then many days of boring lying in bed eating white toast and drinking flat lemonade between much sleeping. T

So not much writing really happening, I'm still wading through the Wolf 2 revision, trying to get Act One to behave itself. I think I've got it ticking over better but now I've reached a point where I need to work out how to slant the next bit. And the girls keep throwing up snippets of a couple of other books (yes, I've managed to start two more books lately, so that makes the next five books that I have starting snippets or chapters for....not counting any of the contemporaries). Go me. Hopefully the girls will work out which one they want to work on next by the time Wolf 2 is done, all this ping ponging around is giving me creative whiplash.

Still, it's better than dead silence in the head and words are getting on to pages so we'll take that as progress, even if it is somewhat spread out progress.

And now, for your entertainment, a picture taken with the new camera.



I love fuschias, they look like little dancing ballerinas. As a kid we used to delight in picking the unopened buds and squishing them on each other. Now, I am wise enough to let them open and enjoy the pretty.

Excursion

Well the week has sped by in a blur of "you were sick last week and missed work and now you have even MORE work to do" at the day job and the inevitable, "yes I was sick last week and pushing it this week will make me sick again" dragging out the virus thing. Lots of early nights to try and get enough sleep given it's been cough central.

Lots of thinking about the books but not much writing. I need to get the first act of Wolf 2 moving a bit faster and have the antag more active. I have an idea about that but will mean re-writing a chunk. So there may be much writer hermit Mel going on while we figure this stuff out. Having never attempted book 2 in a series before (I've written short contemps with characters that appeared in other wips but that's a whole stand alone plot and everything in the other book was always pretty much wrapped up apart from the tension between the new couple for book two) it's a bit of a learning curve to get the pace and balance of new threads/old threads/what's happening/what's happened/what will happen right.

So before being hermit Mel, we went on an excursion to see the Art Deco exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria which was fabulous. Full of beautiful things. I love a lot of Art Deco stuff (and they had some truly beautiful '30's evening gowns and jewellery). So it was a feast for the eyes. If you're in Melbourne and like Art Deco, it's only on for another week but is well worth a visit.

But the girls kind of latched onto this:



The one I saw today was a little different, bronze not black and you couldn't see the face so much (maybe it was turned around) but it was all sleek and intriguing and the little pointy ears are otherwordly and the girls went "oooh". It's called 'Departing Night'. Which is a muse jumpstarting phrase if ever I heard one. So a little excursion out of the ordinary was well worth it. Unintentional artist dates are good. Note to self: Please remember this.

The flow

Turns out Mamma Mia is still fabulous. And still hilarious. And still makes me want to run away to a Greek Island and dance along a pier with my best friends and possibly Pierce Brosnan and/or Colin Firth. Le sigh.

As day one of a holiday goes, today has been pretty good. I've done all the errands bar one. I've done most of the housework. All of the laundry. Thought about what to pack. Did Mamma Mia. And then, I succumbed to the siren song of this book and sat down and now I have fifteen pages already and I really like it and it's all flowing beautifully. Contrary muses. I'm meant to be having a break. Not getting sucked in to another whole new world. But one argues with the flow at one's peril so I guess there will be more typing tomorrow and I guess I'll be taking a laptop with me to San Fran....

No rest for the wicked

Usually the girls give (or demand) a bit of down time between books but for the last little while this one's been prowling around my head and the heroine hasn't been all that happy about being told to wait and kept right on whispering in my ear. So I guess I'll be starting this when I get a chance to do some writing and now that she's relatively hapy with the collage and the soundtrack. She's kind of bossy. Kind of screwed up and he's just pure sunshine...this could be fun.




PS For those of you counting alone, we're down to four more sleeps and, even more exciting, one more day of work!!

Confused

Can someone please explain to me why this darn book, which insisted on a long and arduous hunt for witchy demon techno music and was very picky about what it would accept in the course of said long arduous soundtrack hunt, suddenly insists on nothing but Dixie Chicks?

Colour me puzzled. But I don't argue, I just hit repeat on the iPod. And avoid the weird looks at work when I start humming The Bitter End.

In other news, despite its whiplash musical morphings, I'm so far quite liking what I'm reading and the revision process is moving along and has not yet (touch wood and all other anti-jinxing materials known to man) degenerated back into sucking.

Random objects of lust this week:

The return of the Time Phwoarrr! (Yay, ABC).



And also this



Want, want, want. Precioussssssss.

The other angle

I'm circling my book, looking for the other angle. At the moment, it doesn't feel quite right, it's not quite balanced or something. For a start, I think I need a new opening scene. Which I have an idea for but I'm not sure yet that it's the right idea.

Hence the circling. THe looking at collages, the listening to music, doing some tarot readings, buying pretty colored office supplies for my scene listings and watching DVDs. Some times you have to trust the girls and let them go quiet while they do their work. Not that it makes it any easier to stop trying to find the key yourself.

Round and round and round.

I am klutz, hear me...ow?

Anyone else have clumsy times? I'm usually relatively unklutzy (apart from my unerring ability to cork my thigh on the point end of my bedframe at least once a fortnight) but in the last twenty four hours I've broken a bowl, a glass and two jars of spices (oh tiled kitchen floor, how I hate thee). As an added bonus, I managed to whack my head on the bench when I was straightening up from picking up the biggest bits of glass from the spice jars (trust me, chili powder spreads everywhere). Ow.

I can't work out if I'm tired or just unco-ordinated. Maybe it's hormonal or something. Or maybe I'm distracted by this new heroine who's flashing in and out of my head giving just glimpses. A first line. A vague idea of what she is (and that's not particularly good) and her world. Glimmers and shadows. The girls being contrary as usual as I have to finish my revision, fix the witch book with at least two or three passes and write my other burning UF idea before I can get to this chick. That's without trying to get to any of the contemporary ideas. With so many voices in my head it's no wonder I'm going bump in the night.

Famous last words

So this afternoon I settled down to read some of Wolf 2 and go over my notes from the last pass on structural stuff. Which was fine. Then I did the Sunday afternoon read for a bit and meditate. Of course, the girls being contrary beasts suddenly decided that maybe, just maybe, they could stop sulking about Steamy Weather. I got some scene snippets and some additions to the soundtrack and a collage.

Not sure where this fits in the grand plan but I'm going to go along with it for now and see how far I get and will do some Wolf 2 thinking/revising at the same time. It will be interesting swinging backwards and forwards between two completely different books and genres but I'll see how it goes.

I'm not planning to talk much about SW in case I voodoo myself, even though keeping the metrics worked well for Witch. I liked seeing the stats each day. I find it motivating to record them, like page counts. It's my Virgo side I guess. All statistical and analytical. So I'll keep some stats and report occasionally but probably not as much as Witch. Who knows, I could wake up tomorrow and the girls will retreat into sulking again but let's hope not, I was having great fun with it when it was flowing well.

Pondering

It's official. The girls are saying nuh-uh to what I thought happened next. of course, they are not doing anything useful like saying "here. try this instead". Therefore I declared today and yesterday official days of pondering (aka trying to figure out what the heck does happen). Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone and we'll see.

Books are tricky. And this heroine is proving interesting. She doesn't seem to realise she's the heroine in an urban fantasy. She is pretty set on ignoring the woo-woo in her world due to her past. All that's about to change as she's just found out something that means she can't stick the head in the sand anymore but it's made it tricky to get that stuff into the story so far. Because she determinedly doesn't deal with that part of the world. Oh well, something to figure out in the revisions.

I have the next five days off, so would like to get 20-40 pages done. I guess we'll see if how that pans out. There also has to be hot cross bun baking, ballet attending and some exercising given not much cardio has occurred this week. But hey, no day job sucking up 10 hours or so a day, so all that should be do-able!

Now, I'm either going to watch Once (yay Quickflix) or go to bed. Decisions, decisions.

Focus

I may have mentioned before that my girls in the basement can be slightly contrary. They want to play all over the place and don't necessarily care about my views or plans.

Like today. Today I'm standing in the shower (a frequent book-puzzling-out location for most writers I'd guess) trying to figure out some stuff for the book when the girls started playing the song which I know goes with the last scene of Wolf 3 very loudly in my head (it's still playing), and start my h/h from those books talking. Gah.

No! I have taken notes but I'm not writing Wolf 3 now. Though I'm thinking that my plan that next I'd revise Wolf 2 might be altering to write Wolf 3 and revise Wolf 2 at the same time. Because 3 is becoming more and more insistent in my head.

But no more werewolves until we sort out the witch and her boy and the demon. Into the fog once more for me. Maybe if I go back to Moby I can drown out this other song.

Fits and starts

If I can do more three more pages today, I'll be at 30k. Yay. Not quite as much as I hoped for this week but better nothing given the general tiredness factor.

I've been trying to write this book mostly linearly but haven't quite got the feel of the world right or something. Lot's of talky-talky and not so much on the cool demons and magic factor. So today I've been doing the tried and true 'just skip ahead and write an interesting bit'. Which has worked. So I'm thinking this might just be a patchwork book.

I'm also thinking I might try keeping some writing metrics here on the blog a la Elizabeth Bear. See if it helps keep me on track at all. And also would be an interesting way to look at my process for the book.

More on that later once I have the final tally for the day. But first a break and some more reading of Carolyn's wip. Swashbuckling and magic as a change from reluctant demons.

The Amazon strikes again

This morning, in the aftermath of last night's concert shenanigan's, I'd have to sum it up as I like Bon Jovi but am annoyed that the venue and mix turned what should've been a great concert into a reasonable one.

But moving on, as I was consuming caffeine and trying to wake up this morning, the girls started nagging about music for the Witch book and how it wasn't right yet. Picky, these girls.

I write to music 90% of the time, so yes, they're right, the music needs to work for the book. But this book is hard. I posted last year about needing witchy demon music but just haven't found it.

It's weird. My contemporary stuff is pretty much written to rock/pop and a bit of country. Songs that tell me something about the character, their story or the mood they're in. The odd bit of High Focus or Brain Power when I really want to just zone out and pump out words.

But with the paranormal and fantasy stuff, things have started to change. It started with Wolf 1, where I was walking through Borders in Carlton with the VT and heard a song that was instantly the protag from the book. (Angel by Massive Attack, if you're interested). There was just something about it that caught a sense of menace for me. But the rest of that book was still rock/pop etc.

Then the muse started throwing up other UF and straight fantasy ideas. And putting together the soundtrack for the biggest of the fantasy ones, led me to Lisa Gerrard and Vas and Adam Hurst in amongst the more contemporary stuff. That soundtrack is still a work in progress.

By the time I got to Wolf 2, the girls insisted I needed big chunks of the Pirates of the Carribean 3 soundtrack in there (what pirates have to do with werewolves escapes me but it works for the girls, so I will not argue).

And then, I started trying to put together the Witch book soundtrack. The girls pointed to Massive Attack and said "kinda but not quite". This is not helpful. I don't listen to much electronic/dance stuff. Never have. Never was a clubber or raver or any of that stuff. I know bits and pieces from the radio, bits and pieces from movies. I own some Moby, some chillout stuff (but chillout is so not what the book wants) and some new age stuff a la clannad and enya and riverdance and secret garden and various meditation-y stuff (and ditto re so not right) and that's about it. I don't know this music so I can't say I want some x and y and z. Frustration. Keri writes to Enigma a lot but that isn't right for this either. Not dark enough. Some of the stuff for the fantasy book is close in mood (particularly the Adam Hurst) but not the right sound.

I couldn't even figure out why I suddenly need this sort of soundscapey/ambient/instrumental music for these books until it hit me today that it's because I don't just need it to evoke the characters but I need it to evoke the WORLDS (which seems completely obvious NOW of course). With these books, unlike the contemps, we're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy, so I need stuff to take the brain away form here and now as well as tell me about the characters. Writing, btw, is complicated.

Rock and pop still mostly works for the Wolf books because that world is pretty much here and now with added beasties. There are some tech/medical/social differences because of the beasties but it's not far removed.

But the fantasy books are whole other worlds, hence the otherwordly music I found. And the Witch book is here and now shoved forward 30 odd years with magic. Lots of differences. Oh, and demons. So I need sound that evokes the future and the weird stuff. The demons themselves and why I insist on bad guys that freak me out are a whole 'nother post.

Anyway, witchy demon music. Hard to find when you have no clue about ambient/electronic stuff. But then this morning, like I said, I was drinking caffeine and thinking and reading blogs and the ever brilliant Heidi (who is the one who introduced the Cherries to Curio and for that alone is a writing goddess) was talking about her wip music and mentioned Delerium. Which I duly investigated on iTunes and, hallelujah, that is more like it. I will be purchasing some Delerium for sure.

And then my brain finally kicked into gear and thought "you know, if you google dark electronic music,you'll probably find stuff" (told you my brain was broken for the last few months of last year). So I did and have spent two hours or so checking out lots of strange things this morning and compiling lists for future reference. A lot of dark ambient stuff but then also a reminder about people like Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Though Vangelis has some particular emotional resonances for me, which I discovered today when I kept having to stop the iTunes previews because they were making me nervous and sad. Which, no doubt, means the girls will insist on it at some point. Oh joy. And really goes to prove that music is an emotional key for me and that's why I use it to write to.

I've also got a list of soundtracks to acquire. I like soundtracks, well, scores I guess, generally. Again, not quite right for this - too orchestral and full blown I'm thinking but good for future use hopefully.

But enough with the long rambling. I have the start of witchy demon music. I have a collage that's taking shape. So now I need the words to start piling up as well.

Time for butt in chair, hands on keyboard of the non-blogging variety.

Contrary

Never be let it said that Melbourne weather does not have a sense of humour. Keri and I are off to Bon Jovi tonight. It's an outdoor concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl (the first concert I've ever been to there except for Carols by Candlelight). So, inevitably, Melbourne, where it hasn't really rained much since the dreaded-rain-before Christmas-that-flooded-us-all TM, has turned on a cool rainy day. I'm sure the weather gods are snickering. Childish, those weather deities (she says cautiously, not wanting any more floods etc).

Oh well, I'm sure that Jon will still look and sound hot through rain speckled glasses. Though I'm not sure my raincoat qualifies as hot rock chick wear. Not that much in my wardrobe probably does : )

Elsewhere, I've been reading Heidi's blog and turning green with envy over her access to Torchwood S2 and much hot Jack Harkness goodness (hint, hint, Channel 10). And admiring her brilliant curio collages (go back a few entries). So while I'm living on a somewhat soggy prayer, go play over there.

My own curio collage for the Witch book is revealing that things, particularly for my heroine, might be darker than I thought. How many books it will take before this stops surprising me, I wonder?

Bumpy indeed

Well something has shaken loose because the girls sent me a phrase this morning that at first made me think "what the heck is a XXXX" but then gave me a way to make a whole plot idea work. Yay. And they seem very squirmy and excited about it. More yay.

So to celebrate I thought it was about time to clean off the old wordmeter for the category that has progressed since I last updated the wordmeter but is not the priority project du jour. Only to find that my darling Zokutou is thumbing its nose at me. I enter the figs, I press go and instead of clever code that gives me my word meter, I get returned to the index page. Wah! Anyone know what's up with that?

So I'm using the other word meter. Also provided by lovely people but just not as pretty. Still it was heartening to add up all my bits and pieces of this book and realise I had close to 10k already. How much of it will remain given this morning's developments is anyone's guess but it feels better than starting with zero, that's for sure! Even if it does go backwards as I slash and burn my first chapter or so.

PS Dear Australia Post, please cough up my copy of Iron Kissed soon.
PPS Dear libaries and bookshops of Australia, someone should have a copy of the Virtu!