Skip to main content

Edamame & Bull's Blood

No, I promise those are not the protagonists in my current WIP.
I did, however, stumble across an Earnest Hemingway quote earlier this afternoon:
Write drunk, edit sober.

And thanks to a timely blogpost by Alan Chin, I've been reminded that the plot isn't the only thing that needs to arc. I know I suck hairy werewolf genitals when it comes to plot arcs, so I've been intensely focused on outlining this one. I finally got it to a place where I was immensely pleased with it, only to discover zero impetus to write it.

Because I had no emotional engagement with or interest in the characters.
News flash, Rhi. You let yourself forget that the characters need to arc as well.
So here I sit, munching edamame to curb the craving I parted ways with six months ago, and a glass of Bull's Blood in a salute to Hemingway's method of relaxing to let the muses do the work.

Or rather, to let the writer get out of their own damned way. I need to do that more often, let me tell you. Letting out the stories in my head probably wouldn't take half so long, if I could manage to find a way to do that. Reliably. Regularly. Right now, it's still like going through the full Catholic ritual of exorcism. Tends to be just as violent and bloody too, come to think of it.

Today's writer task is to outline the arcs of my three main characters. Yeah I know, getting a late start. The soldierporn was distracting.

Comments

  1. Mmmmm. Edamame & Bull's blood. Daughter and I were just snacking on edamame the other day. NOM. Bull's Blood, sadly, I still can't find here. Seems it one of those things I can only have on my visits there, like Monkey Bread and those fabulous cookies I can't remember the name of...

    Mmmmm, Yeah, you got the NOMs over there. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. If I plot out my stories the characters have no desire to tell the story, since they feel it's already been written out. But plotting out seems like the easiest way sometimes for stories to make sense.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Amara Sand tarts? Oh, yes. I should go snag a bag of those to munch on my next day off, while I'm writing.

    @Alex I'm *hoping* that isn't what's going on here, or I might pull my hair out. I've done an outline of the general plot, not so much what happens between the characters on a personal/emotional level--since they haven't told me yet and I doubt they will until I start writing it in earnest. Fingers crossed that when I start exploring their characters a little more deeply, they crawl out of the crevices and start cooperating.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Anonymous commenting is enabled. However, I reserve the right to censor content that is not civil and respectful. Discussions are welcome and encouraged. Attacking is not.

Popular posts from this blog

And the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Futuristic/Sci-Fi Goes To...

*clears throat* Drum roll, please. In a three-way tie for first place, Dark Edge of Honor. My thanks to Aleks Voinov the Best Co-Author Ever (and CONGRATS too, Darth Vader -- you rock), Deb Nemeth the Editor of Awesome, and all the very professional staff at Carina Press. Cue the Snoopy Dancing, Streamers, Confetti Parade and Sundry Noisemakers.

Meet the Muses: Origin: Mike

Mike is my character from the soon-to-be-released 'Dark Edge of Honor.' I’ve been acquainted with a number of different veterans and soldiers through the years, but there was one specifically—a person I don’t know, and never met—that sparked the beginnings of this story and was the avatar of the spirit behind him. Late in 2009, I stumbled rather deliberately upon the website of photojournalist Michael Yon and delved into the dispatches from his 2005 embed with deployed troops in Iraq. One of them stopped me in my tracks. Entitled “Gates of Fire,” (click here for the link to Yon's full dispatch) it recounted an incident involving the Deuce Four’s Lt. Colonel Kurilla and Command Sergeant Major Prosser which Yon witnessed, camera in hand.

My Mini-Vacation

I'm taking all of next week off from my regular day-job so that I can celebrate DEoH's release-- Snoopy-Dancing and Grinning Like an Institutionalized Loon. Without scaring the customers. It's not really  a vacation, because I'm still working, after a fashion. If it were a real vacation, I wouldn't be staying at home, that's for sure. If I could take a real  week's vacation, I'd be here: Best View Ever, Bora Bora Hammock. However, I'm not. I'm in my little writer corner all week long, availing myself to fans and readers and bloggers and such, doing all the marketing and promo stuff that a good little author does. [Yes, Good Little Author. Pat me on the head and give me a cookie now!] But I think I'll keep this picture handy. As my desktop background or something, perhaps. Because, woohoo, that's gorgeous ain't it? They have restaurants with extreme al fresco dining, where the tables and chairs are in the water. One d