latest musical obsessions

I realize I've been lax in posting my most recent musical infatuations with you guys. So here goes:

Nick Drake's "Three Hours" is such an awesome song. So sombre and almost like a ballad. Exactly the kind of song you need to listen to to get your angst on. (Or to write heart-breaking scenes set in the Civil War South, which is my current duty.)

"Rocks and Water" by Deb Talan. Also a really good song for my current Southern Gothic WIP. It has that folksy slant I need without getting too overwhelming country-like. (No offense, lovers of country music!)

This song is drastically different than the other two. A dancey, electronic bit. Perfect for jogging to! (And writing club scenes, but sadly, there are none of those in SouthernGothicNovel).

What about you guys? Heard any good music lately?

writer's block

As you might have read below, yesterday was a very frustrating writerly writing day. Why? Because I had writer's block.

Which incidentally makes me feel like an angry wet cat.

Writer's block is so frustrating simply because it's something that I really cannot control. It's not like I wake up one day and decide Today would be a great day to get writer's block. It just happens. There's a point where I cannot go on with a scene or if I can it just feels wrong. I've learned (especially over the past few months with revisions for LUMINANCE HOUR) that my intuitions are usually right when it comes to what will work and what won't.

But yesterday, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why the scene felt so wrong. I spent about half an hour just staring at my computer screen with an agonized stare. Scribbling nonsensical things in my notebook.

In case you're wondering about the robot reference, it's in connection with Laini Taylor's writing blog.

Anyway. I ended up setting everything aside and picking up a book (Jessica Spotswood's Born Wicked if you were wondering). Usually reading helps clear my head. But when I put the book down I was still feeling... stuck.

So I decided to talk about it. This is just one of the many reasons why critique partners are SO NECESSARY! They help you remember that you don't suck as a writer and that your slump is only a temporary natural thing. And sometimes they can even help you figure out what's wrong and how to fix it!

In my case, I was trying to cram too much into such a short span of pages. I realized what I needed to do to get me out of my rut and make my manuscript better for it. Of course, doing said thing means "killing my darlings" (ie. deleting or filing away some scenes that I LOVE because the writing is SO PRETTY) (<--as you can see I'm being so humble here.). And this subject belongs to another post entirely. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, in summation, to get over writer's block one must:

A) Curse and write about robots in sloppy handwriting.
B) Stare at computer screen for a lengthy amount of time.
C) Read a book.
D) Talk it out with you therapist (er, critique partner...)
E) All of the above.

I will let you decide.

two things on a tuesday

1. I have writer's block.

2. I want to punch it in the face.

That is all.

pst.

I posted on the Lucky 13s blog today on how I come up with my character names. It's a process. Go check it out!!

what i did this weekend...

This weekend I finally did it.

I got my nose pierced.

I've wanted a tiny nose stud for a long time. Since my senior year of high school really. But I've never really found myself in a position to be able to get one until now (due to life circumstances). There was always some excuse.

But I'm fortunate enough to be at a place in my life where I can get away with having one. (Yay!)

why you shouldn't worry about idea thieves

A few days ago, Elana Johnson blogged about idea envy, or what happens when creative-mind/author types go lusting after each other's story concepts. It happens all the time, sometimes more often than we choose to admit.

But I'm not going to talk about the jealousy aspect of this issue to much as its possible ramifications. Before I found my agent and publisher, I was very careful about guarding my ideas. They were like Cadbury chocolate (Mine!!! All Mine!!!), precious and protected.

The answer is yes. If I could, I would eat all of these Cadbury Crunchie bars.

I was so cautious about this, that I actually avoided sharing my query on public forums, which ended up being to my detriment because it needed critiquing!! And then I read a post that made me realize why this wasn't necessary.


See, I was afraid of people stealing my novel. Not my ideas. A single idea can become many, many different things. No one can write the exact same way you do. Rarely, very rarely, is any idea truly unique. In fact, Ecclesiates 1:9 says so: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

That's right folks. You heard it here. Nothing new. Under the entire sun.

So, if we follow this logic, there are no new ideas. Just the same ideas under different veils.

No one else can write your book. Not the way you're going to write it. If I decided to write a book about a boy attending a wizarding school, it would be decidedly different than Harry Potter. Same with a vampire love story. What I wrote would not be Twilight. For better or worse, it would be a creation of its own.

So don't worry so much about people stealing your ideas. And don't worry about people having "better" ideas than you. It's the execution of the story and the writing that truly matters. And that's something only you can carry out! Your voice, your style, your perspective... all of it is unique. No one can steal them, no matter how hard they try.


PS. I feel like it would be a fascinating experiment to give 10 authors a book synopsis and tell each of them to write it, then see how much they vary in the end. (My guess is much!)

the best fruit in the world

So I was browsing the wonderful aisles of Wally-world yesterday when this caught my eye:

What is so special about green tea, you ask? Look closer and you shall see.

It's not just green tea, my friends. It's green tea with dragonfruit.

I was introduced to dragonfruit at the tender age of 20, when I went over to Cambodia for six weeks to live in the slums and teach English to the precious children who lived there. Southeast Asia has so many delicious fruits that I'd never seen before: lychees, mangosteens, oranges with green peels. But it was dragonfruit that stole my heart. Who couldn't love a fruit that looks like this:

Hot pink! With dragon scales!! The insides sometimes look like a white kiwi (there are other versions which are very pink). I was addicted to it during the trip. And when I returned home to the states I was very disappointed to realize that they don't import them here. The only way I could sate my desire for dragonfruit was by buying Vitamin Water's Power-C flavor (the bright pink one.)

Three years later, when I traveled to Thailand with my husband, I introduced him to the joys of dragonfruit:

Needless to say, this tea makes me happy. Thank you, Lipton, for sating my cravings.