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Three Sentence Thursdays - Zombie Edition #1

I'm going to use a different posting style this time as there are several things I'd like to address which are fairly brief and don't flow well. So we'll divide this post into little segments with bold titles of their own.

Don't worry, the promised excerpt has a section too.

On Titles:
I've come up with a working title for the zombie book. It's called Romance and Zombies until I come up with something better.

On Character Names:
The other day, a dear friend mentioned that the first thing she thinks of upon hearing the name 'Daisy' is Daisy Duke. I realized this was likely more common than picturing the Daisy from the live-action Super Mario Brothers movie, so I decided Daisy needed a new name. After all, she is not a booty-shorts-wearing redneck.

Daisy is now called Dawn, and shall be referred to as such from here on out.

On Progress:
I am currently just shy of 1,500 words into Romance and Zombies. I wrote almost 1,000 words yesterday, and almost 500 today. Writing two days in a row felt nice.

The Situation:
So you're not terribly confused by the excerpt, I'll explain a little. I did use the idea paragraph as the opening of the book.

At the point of this snippet, I've got Dawn away from the zombies in the yard and into her house. She has a broken nose and sprained ankle and is preparing to leave. Part of that preparation involves eliminating the zombies in her front yard so she can drive away easily, so she was headed upstairs to snipe them. But she heard a crash downstairs.

Three Sentences:
They were inside and headed her way.
Dawn dropped to a crouch as quietly as she could and brought her rifle to bear, aiming through the banister rails at the hallway. She waited with bated breath, palms sweating on the rifle's stock.

On Process:
I think I like stopping in the middle of something important. I did the same last night and was able to come back to it tonight (technically this morning) and continue on without much trouble. I knew where the story was going because I didn't stop at the end of the first scene.

I think I'll continue to stop in the middle of the action. That might make Three Sentence Thursdays more interesting for you, too.

Unless I write drivel. If I'm writing drivel, do feel free to tell me so.

On Character Development:
I realized today that I don't know enough about Dawn. All my main characters need further development. I have very brief, strawman descriptions of them all, but I lack details. My characters lack flesh at the moment.

I don't know why I keep thinking, "Why do I need to know where she grew up? It's not like I'm going to tell her life story." I used to act. In theatre, when given a new character, I spent hours (sometimes days) fleshing the character out. I filled out questionnaires, wrote journal entries from the character's POV, and wrote their life story. I could not bring a character to life on stage without doing the work. Why would I suddenly think I could do so on paper, with visible internal monologue, without knowing the character inside and out?

Everything about a character matters. I think I forgot that for a moment. I know I can't continue Dawn's story much further without getting to know her better. So I'll likely spend the next few days doing just that.

A Closing Question:
Because I like asking (sometimes completely random) questions and tossing ideas around, this might become a regular feature here.

How would you handle a zombie apocalypse and what would you do?

Zombies and Books and Blogging, Oh My!

I have come to the conclusion that my brain is now inhabited by zombies. They stagger around in there all day and night, groaning about something or other, and rapidly devouring every idea which isn't related to them.

In an email of in-depth critique to fellow blogger and new online friend, Vera, I wrote the following:

Daisy raised the Desert Eagle with trembling hands, taking aim at her husband's forehead. No. Not her husband. The walking corpse across the lawn was NOT her husband. She squared her stance, both hands on the pistol to contain her shaking, and blinked back her tears. As he staggered towards her, she whispered through gritted teeth, "I love you," and pulled the trigger.

And I liked it. I liked it so much, in fact, I haven't been able to get poor Daisy out of my head for almost a week now. My mind is full of questions: How did her husband get infected? How did the zombies come to be? What is the world like? Where will she go from here? Can she find love in a zombie apocalypse? What happens next?

So I showed the little snippet to my fiancé. He, quite literally, bagan bouncing about on the couch, flailing, and shouted at me, "Where is the rest of this?! I wanna read this book! Write me the rest of this book!"

I, of course, grinned like an idiot in my pride that a little nonchalant example I'd written in a 5AM haze, had grabbed someone.

So I showed it to another friend, and another, and received similar reactions. Even when I explained that I'd like it to be a romance of some sort. I mentioned their reactions to Vera, and she too mentioned an interest in reading that book. Hell, I want to read that book.

Seeing as I want to read the book that is rapidly forming in my head, I figure I may as well write it. And maybe the book after it too. It seems to me that Daisy and her hero, whoever he might be, wouldn't be the only ones to find love in a destroyed world with zombies, slavers, and the like around every corner.

You see, I want to write zombies no one has ever seen before. Well, maybe someone has, but I certainly haven't. And you're not getting any details out of me today. I want to write about crazy religious extremists, slavers, biker gangs, military contingents, cults, terrified families, resilient children, badass old folks, and one frightened woman fighting to survive her grief and the world.

I spent the better part of the last two days writing down ideas. Zombie ideas. I tell you, they won't leave me alone. Most of my conversations, these last few days, have been about zombies. Thoughts on how they came to exist, how they function, who they should eat, who poor Daisy could meet along her journey to maybe falling in love again. And I liked every word I scribbled down; even my dinky little outline. Just yesterday I wrote more about a zombie apocalypse than I've managed to add to Sleeping Lady in two weeks. Now, I'm not going to abandon dear Abigail, but I'm definitely going to write this zombie book. I think I can handle concurrent works in progress.

While blogging and social networking sites have been thoroughly distracting me from working on Sleeping Lady, this may not be a bad thing. After all, I'm making about as much progress with Abigail's story in my head as on paper. And paying too much attention to blogging did, however inadvertently, give me the idea to write zombies. And I do love zombies.

Now I just need a working title for the zombie book. Any suggestions?

Three Sentence Thursdays

Today we start something new here. Every Thursday I shall post the last three sentences I added to my current work in progress. Yes, even if they're utter crap. Now, should the three sentences require some explanation in order to make any sense whatsoever, I may offer a few more sentences or some context.

As it is the inaugural Thursday, however, I shall break my own rules. This week, you shall receive the FIRST three sentences of Sleeping Lady.

Sleeping Lady is a paranormal romance; at least, it will be when it's a bit further along. It takes place in Alaska. And that's all I really know at the moment. I'm flying blindly and by the seat of my pants, letting my characters tell me a story about themselves, so I don't know much yet.

Three sentences:

"She stood gazing at the Sleeping Lady across the water, waiting. Abigail Sutton was always waiting for something. Waiting to take a lunch order, waiting for customers to leave so she could mop the diner's floors, waiting for her little blue Subaru wagon to warm up so she could go home, waiting for the snow to melt... Always waiting."

I have no idea at this point whether or not this will actually be the beginning when this piece of fiction is finished. I do know I like it, and the image of Abby staring at my favorite mountain got me on my ass writing.

Hopefully keeping up with Three Sentence Thursdays will help me keep adding words to my work(s) in progress!
I love feedback in all its many flavors, so let me know what you think! The only things I will not tolerate in my comments are attacks upon my person or the person of another commenter. If you desperately need to attack my person, feel free to send me an email; I might even reply so we can have a jolly little private war.

Happy writing everyone!

Side note:
I'll be dedicating an entire post to this soon, but please head over to The Oatmeal for information on how to help the rest of the Internet prevent the destruction of Nicola Tesla's home and laboratory.

Coping With Fear

I've come to the conclusion that my current computer situation is a problem.

Several months ago the hinges on my laptop seized. They are completely locked in place. This wouldn't be a huge problem had I not attempted a repair and lost all the screws in the process of not managing to loosen the hinges.

At present, my dear and ancient laptop is lying on a table in two pieces attached to each other by a pair of tiny wires and a small ribbon. To use the laptop, say, to retrieve some document I desperately need, I must stand over it, bent at the waist to view the screen. I cannot write on my laptop.

There are two desktop computers in my house. The first belongs to my fiancé and actually sits under a real computer desk with a big old CRT monitor on top. The only seating options for this desk are an incredibly uncomfortable straight-backed 1950's style kitchen table chair... Or the most uncomfortable office chair I've ever had the displeasure of acquainting my luscious ass with. It's one of those mesh monsters with no padding, terrible curvature, and metal armrests which are covered in electrical tape to keep them attached.

My fiancé's computer is not an option.

And then there's the computer I started my novel on... In Open Office because my laptop is the only computer with Storybook on it and my only Internet source is my cellphone.

I started my novel on a computer called Bob. Bob The Media Box. Bob only runs Linux because HP is dumb and had ASUS (or Acer, I forget) make them a motherboard with a built in network card Windows doesn't recognize; so when I reinstalled Windows, Windows offered me thirty days to register... Which quickly lapsed and locked me out of said operating system when I could not offer the machine Internet access to download the required drivers within the proper OS.

Yes, I am a nerd.

In any case, Bob gets our lone LCD screen because Linux + Bob's video card + our giant tube TV don't play well together. When in use, the flat screen lives on a little plastic table (next to my decapitated laptop) between our large coffee-table and the entertainment center where Bob lives. Yes, we have to climb over cables to go to the bathroom.

All this means that I'm currently trying to write a novel from my couch. The computer is ten feet away, the monitor five. I use a wireless keyboard across one knee and a doorstop book on the center cushion, my right knee positioned near my shoulder to keep my leg out of the way and me curled up comfortably. I'm forced to use a bolded twenty-eight point font, which I still have to squint at because my glasses are scratched and in need of an updated prescription.

And that's only half the problem. The other half is, well my other half.

Actually, I'm the problem. The trouble is I can't seem to write on a screen he can plainly see while he's sitting a couple feet away and looking in the same direction as my fumbling attempts at fiction. He's already gone to bed, but I did write most of my last post with him next to me. Like I said, my only internet is my phone. I can keep the screen of my phone to myself while I tap away at the little on-screen keyboard.

Strange, isn't it? I can share all the words about myself, my insecurities, my shyness, my struggles, and my few accomplishments in a heartbeat on this blog... But I can't write while my fiancé can see the screen.

I doubt I could continue this blog post if he, or anyone, we're looking over my shoulder either. It's like I'm hoarding all of my words. Absolutely no one can see them until I feel they're ready; or, at least, until they're complete.

I am incredibly insecure about my writing. I pour my heart into everything I write, everything I create. I am significantly more insecure about my fiction, because it is so new to me, than anything else... Except, perhaps, my angsty teenage poetry which I have dragged with me from state to state for fear of my parents stumbling upon it in my old bedroom. No, I will probably not ever destroy it; it's excellent reference material should I ever have or write an angsty teenaged girl.

At the moment, I don't have a job. One would think that means I have plenty of time to write while my fiancé is out bringing home the bacon. This would be true if I could stop being so damn lazy, keep a regular schedule, wake up before noon, stop needing four hours to become fully conscious, and stop feeling like I need to use the hours between when my fiancé goes to bed and when I do to "wind down" by playing video games and watching Stargate on the computer I should be using to write...

It also seems that my muse believes the ideal time to use her little hemlock wand to throw creative lightning into my brain is approximately five minutes before my fiancé gets home from work and all day on his days off. Perhaps it has something to do with the weight of him on the other side of the couch, like there's some cosmic scale his sitting there balances perfectly. Or maybe it's Murphy making true with his law and snickering somewhere saying "Hah! Now you are near desperate to continue that story and have a million new ideas for it but won't be able to muster the courage to do it!"

Stop being lazy, stop procrastinating, stop distracting myself, stop staying up till six in the morning writing blog posts and playing video games, stop being afraid of people reading my fiction, stop being insecure, and find a magic money tree so I can have a functional laptop and a home internet connection like a normal person.

That's one tall to-do list... I'll start tomorrow.

Muses and Movement

I wake up daily with the intention to write. Daily, I write down what I ate and how I feel in a composition book, I write posts on forums, emails, comments and things on Facebook, text messages, silly notes to my fiancé...

But I don't work on my story.

Perhaps I'm distracting myself with television, reading on my Kindle, surfing the net on my phone, etc... I don't deal well with silence. I'm not one of those people who needs absolute silence to create. In fact, my best work seems to be born in the midst of chaos, noise , and multitasking.

In high school and through my college courses I always studied and wrote papers and stories with music blaring or the television on and a billion instant messages pinging in the background. In all that chaos, I made art.

Now, it seems the television has grown interesting enough to distract me. The sounds of children playing, teenagers giggling as they walk past the paper thin walls of the glorified tin can that is my house, vehicles driving through the trailer park or pulling into my shared driveway, and the occasional earthquake or catfight are enough to cause me to leap out of my seat in the throes of a mild panic attack if I don't have the television streaming dribble into my living room to blame the sounds on. Blaring music just isn't enough. Even now the creaking doors of my neighbor's little green pickup just made me jump.

I suppose it doesn't help that silence doesn't seem to exist in my little trailer park near the airport. Of course, if it did, I'd likely start imagining sounds to frighten me and waste hours trying to find television programming or music capable of drowning out the scary sounds in my head.

Perhaps I've list the ability to focus through the chaos. Perhaps my story isn't interesting enough for me to push everything else to the background. Perhaps it's time I stop whining long enough to give my muse a chance to speak; maybe I'm drowning her out.

Welcome, Potential Someday Readers

So here's the plan. I'll write the novel, you'll read about the process (and perhaps read some snippets here too) here, then we'll see about some beta readers, make some editing, blurbs, and cover art happen, then publish to Kindle at least... If the novel turns out to be decent.

I'm brand new at this. I've never written anything more than a short story, but I have a mad love for words and my brain is just about bursting with ideas, so I figure it's time to start making a body of work. Maybe I'll come up with some short stories along the way to novel #1, but I tend to think in novel length and am much too addicted to extreme character development (Thank you, years of theatre) to be at all confident in my ability to write a whole story in a couple dozen pages.

The idea here is to take you, dear reader, along with me on the journey from wannabe to real deal... Or from zero to author... Something like that. I'll gladly accept suggestions for anything and everything here too.

As it stands I'm a whole 1500 words into what I think will turn into a paranormal romance set in the Alaskan bush with a working title of Sleeping Lady Story. I don't know if this will turn out to be a novella, a longer than average short story, a full length novel, or even a series or serial. I started it with no plan in mind whatsoever; not generally the brightest thing to do when one decides they'd like to write a novel, but the hero and heroine (at least their basic natures) popped into my head along with a rather pretty opening scene and I was overwhelmed with the need to write, so I jumped right in. So far, it's going incredibly slowly, but well when I can be bothered to write.

In any case, welcome to my mind! And thank you muchly for taking the time to read this.