First Post of 2013!

Hello Blogger, my old friend,
I've come to write with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of BLOGGING.

Apologies to Simon & Garfunkel for butchering their lyrics for my own amusement, but HELLO LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!! In my efforts to put the fun back into my writing (Le gasp!) I've decided to cast Resurrection on my blog here and pull out ALL THE STOPS. Well, almost all of the stops. As many stops as I can pull out while keeping this a family-friendly blog!

Where did that saying come from, anyway? If you know, leave its secret origin in the comments below! (At least, I'm assuming the comments are still below. Have I mentioned that I don't like what Google did to change the Blogger interface?)

In any case, I'm going to be much less proper about how my blog writings will be presented here, because I think that was part of what kept me away from writing. I felt like I was censoring myself too much, analzying every line of every post I'd write, and crippling myself with more self-doubt than I want in my life. Well, NO MORE. It's a new year, and I'm going to write to you, my loyal followers, the way I'd talk to you if we met in person and I didn't have a world-class case of The Shy. Expect the same kind of stuff I'd been writing before, but with more freedom of word choice.

Of course, the downside is that I'm not going to go over every paragraph with a fine tooth comb to edit myself ad nauseum. You are warned.

So, 2013. I hear this year's theme for me is Let It Be Written, Let It Be Done. To that, all I have to say is...

The End of an Era

For those who have been following my writer's journey for a while, you know that there have been a lot of roadblocks and pitfalls along the way. Distractions abound in the writer's life, not the least of which are earning an income. Add on a social life and a love life, and it can be a titanic effort to find time to write anything.

Then there's been my work with Comic Booked. It's a dream come true to be working for a comic book news site, a goal of mine since I read my first Wizard Magazine. But the joys of reading and writing about comic books has distracted me from other writing as well, and there comes a time when you have to reevaluate what you really want out of life. The things you do should support your passion and build your future, and if it's not serving either of those two necessities, it's time to move on.

So, it's time for me to move on from writing.

It's been fun writing and publishing short stories, even writing and rewriting my first novel, and I'm proud of my work for Comic Booked. But at the end of the day, the frustrations of being a writer far outweigh the benefits, especially from the financial end of things. Your work should be something you love with all your heart, and I haven't been doing that at all. It's time I fixed that.

From here on out, my writer's blog will be a musician's blog. I've had a passion for it since elementary school, learning multiple instruments and even conducting my own school band, but I gave it up after high school to pursue this pipe dream of making it as a professional writer. No more. I'm pulling out my old clarinet and dusting it off, and I'll be diving back into my musical pursuits with the goal of joining the L.A. Philharmonic. I hope you'll stick around for the ride.

I appreciate all the support you've given me as a writer, and I hope you'll continue supporting me as I rededicate myself to becoming a musical virtuoso.

Oh, and happy April Fool's Day!

Quotables

"Don't annoy the writer. They may put you in a book and kill you."
—Anonymous (pulled from Quotes4Writers on Twitter)

In the Beginning...

Alright, I promised a blog about my development as a writer, and so far I’ve managed to neglect saying anything directly about my work in progress. No more! It’s time to lift the veil a bit and give you some insight into how I ended up writing a trilogy of young adult books.

As I’d mentioned back in my NaNoWriMo entry, it didn’t start out as a trilogy. It wasn’t even envisioned as a series. At its simplest, most innocent form, I was just working on a one-shot narrative that spun off from a small collection of short stories I was writing at the time. Sure, there was potential for follow-up stories, but my mind wasn’t at that stage yet. All I wanted to do was to tell a little tale to entertain people and show off my “mad writing skills.” I did just that – with every week of NaNoWriMo, I would bring it to the group that inspired my short stories, led by the remarkable Barbara Deutsch and populated mostly by actors, and let one of them read the Excerpt of the Week aloud.

Let me just say right now that if you literary aspirants ever find an opportunity to have your work read aloud by someone you trust, seize it with both hands. Get over your anxiety at having people see your work in progress and let them read it aloud as if to an audience. A successfully crafted narrative is one that flows smoothly, and the best test of this is to see if someone can cold read it without stumbling over the words and sentence structure. More than that, if you’re writing dialogue, you can hear if it sounds conversational or if your characters sound like textbooks. In addition, if you’re writing a story that incorporates humor, you can see and hear if someone gets it or not… depending on if your reader is part of your target audience, of course. (I, myself, am pleased to report that people responded very well to the humor in my first draft.)

By the end of the month, I had a first draft of a novel, but it only barely fit the criteria. I set to the task of reworking it, adding chapters to fill out the narrative, weeding out chapters that were redundant or otherwise added nothing to the story, and changing whatever was left to fit the new material so it would flow even smoother than before. In that time, the word count on my novel blossomed from barely over 50,000 to well over 65,000 words. Plot was tightened, the world was expanded upon, and the whole thing seemed much more cohesive. There was just one little problem.

I had no idea who exactly it was for.

Sure, I had an inkling that it would make for a fine young adult novel, but the tone and some of the material suggested that it might find a home on the sci-fi/fantasy shelf. The fact that I hadn’t decided on who it was for could be seen throughout my story, though, and it suffered greatly for it. I had to pick a genre, and that decision either way would mean a rewrite of my novel. After a great deal of consideration, I decided to bring it fully into the realm of young adult fiction. I’d always had a fondness for the genre, and the success of the Harry Potter book series (among others) showed that they weren’t just for kids. With a little retooling of the story and plot, I could make an awe-inspiring tale of wonder and magic that would sit proudly on the YA Fiction shelf.

I’ll delve into some of that retooling next week!

Why I Don't Read As Often As I Write

A hungry lion was roaming through the jungle looking for something to eat. He came across two men. One was sitting under a tree reading a book; the other was typing away on his laptop. The lion quickly pounced on the man reading the book and devoured him.

Moral of the story: Even the king of the jungle knows that readers digest and writers cramp.

An actual entry will come this weekend, I promise!