CAN A LEOPARD CHANGE ITS SPOTS?

One of the big questions that invariably comes up if you get a bunch of writers together is “Pantser or Plotter?” I have always been a plotter. Always. I put a ton of forethought into each book, chapter outlines, character sketches, plot points and themes…blahblahblah.

Until my current WIP, Moonwitched. I took off work between Christmas and New Year’s so I could FINISH the book. I only have four chapters left. And yes, as of today I still have the same four chapters left as back then. *sigh* I can make all the everyday-life excuses—overtime at work, getting the paperwork started for going back to college in July, becoming deathly ill with the flu, changing critique partners and webmistresses. That’s definitely cutting into writing time.

But that’s not it.

It should have been simple and straightforward—it’s all mapped out, chapter by chapter and scene by scene. I know where I’m going. I know who does what and where they all end up. I should have just been able to tear through the darn thing and had it on my editor’s desk just after New Year’s. I’m STILL on Chapter Twelve.

Because a weird thing happened. I started out rereading it from the start, just to vet it. And my evil muse whispers, “Valkyn’s a father separated from his sons—he’d miss them. He needs to think about them more…how about here…and here? Mari needs to cast another spell of protection for the children…here would be good. Matteo’s sick of Imani’s manipulation and needs to have it out with her…right about here—no, here’s better.”

And on and on it goes. It’s growing from the inside out. Getting fleshed out and longer—more character depth, stronger motivation—but no closer to the end. GRRR!

The book’s getting better, no question. But where the heck is THE END?

I’ve NEVER been a backloader before. I’ve always been a frontloader. My only rewrites usually come from critique partners’ comments (tweaking, never rewriting) and during edits. Until now. I feel like a cyberneticist, turning a human into a cyborg one bionic part at a time. Insert here, beef up there, clarify this, move that. Gene-splicing—to get a “new and improved” baby. My hardcore notes feel more like guidelines. Thank you, Captain Barbosa. What the heck happened to the diehard plotter? It feels like dithering. But this book won’t be rushed.

Is it some subconscious maneuver to stall b/c this is the LAST book in the Guardians of Light series and I don’t want to let go? Braeca’s story in the Daughters of the Guardians series is all ready to go—and I can’t get Moonwitched off the stage for the second act to start. (My friends will tell you I overthink everything—right, Adam? Chris?) I know I will finish this book, like all the others. And it’ll be great. Chapter Twelve can’t last forever.

It’s just weird. I am one cranky leopard…<LOL>

The Plot Bunny: The Good and the Bad

The Plot Bunny: The Good and the Bad

Sharita Lira

Greetings! It’s April already? Good grief! A quarter of the year already gone, quite unbelievable that 2012 is flying by but we say that about every year. And here I sit at my computer with deadlines as per usual as well as the plot bunnies that continue to pop in my brain.

No, no, wait! I’ve got deadlines! Don’t you see? A book due 4/15, a short due in May, another in June, yet these little buggers don’t give a damn. They come when I write, when I sleep, sometimes while driving and I have to focus or else I might have an accident. What the hell? Do they plan these attacks? I certainly think they do. When I least expect it, I’ve got ideas from a photograph, a song, scenario, a sentence or word, and if it’s really good it’s ready to be written in synopsis form with a couple of pictures for inspiration. If not, the thoughts are scribbled in my notebook until they become full ideas.

Do those ever develop into stories? Yeah they do. My Lieutenant for one, started out as a very small idea that I wrote in my notes; an interracial couple that meets when one man notices the other's apartment getting burglarized. That turned into a full fledge book with a sequel and a possible series in the works. When will I have time for this? Dunno!

Yes that picture is true. And just when will I have time to write about the one plot bunny that haunts me because of this picture on the right: 

An m/m story, penning my muse named Jayden becoming the obsession of his coworker who’s happily married but doesn’t seem to care about the consequences. Yeah some tension there! Something About Jayden has been on my mind since like last August but because of deadlines and stories that push ahead a little more, I keep putting it off. I better write it someday soon or this bunny will eat me, I’m sure of it.

The things multiply and can become vicious, but tell me, where would we writers be without them? When in a slump, some call it writer’s block, other’s call it, well, a slump, they need these to jumpstart their writing. If you’ve been devoid of ideas then they’re good to look back on. This has never happened to me. I think I may have enough stories to last me quite a while but if it ever did, all I have to do is look in the book and my ever growing synopsis folder which currently has 16 ideas in there. Oh and don’t even mention the ones that are started and unfinished. Those just need serious edits and would probably be ready if I took the time but again, when will this be?

Hopefully this summer! I purposely decided not to answer so many subcalls so I can feed some of those bunnies and give them their just due. Some of them, like the Jayden story are amazing. Others need serious work and maybe just maybe I’ll be able to get to those later on.

What about the rest of you? Authors, what do you think about the plot bunnies? Do you hold on to them? Have little scraps of paper waiting to be read? Tell me. Thanks for listening.

Official Blurb: Nathan Ellerby's apartment has been ransacked by his ex who didn't like the fact Nathan dumped him. Trouncing through the debris uttering a string of obscenities, Nathan's shocked to see Lieutenant Bryant Duncan at his door claiming he's already caught the offender. Sensing an instant connection, when Nathan finds out Bryant's divorced and he's straddling the fence between being gay or bisexual, Nathan finds himself in a quandary.

 Although the Lieutenant does everything in his power to prove to Nathan he's worthy, Nathan is afraid to lower his defenses which leaves both men wondering if Nathan will allow love into his life even through his doubts.

Buylinks

ARe http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-mylieutenant-625417-148.html

Bookstrand http://www.bookstrand.com/my-lieutenant

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/My-Lieutenant-ebook/dp/B00628S0TM/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_4

Booktrailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i62rSF-wr1w&feature=player_embedded

Author Sharita Lira: The Triad, otherwise known as the characters in the head of Sharita Lira are three separate muses that are the driving force behind her small amount of success. Misses Lira sees her own life as one that is very ordinary, so instead of presenting herself out to the world, she created three personalities that continue to haunt her all hours of the night to get several WIP’s done at the speed of light, and push her to the brink of sheer exhaustion, but she loves it and that’s the reason she hasn’t told them to get the hell out her head.

Michael Mandrake, BLMorticia, and Rawiya collectively have written over 30 stories published in e-book and or print through 7 different publishers. Right now as it stands, Mrs. Lira and the muses have 6 sole author books with much more to come in 2012 and beyond.

She is a happily married mother of two that writes m/m, m/f, ménage, paranormals, contemporaries, and for fun some fan fiction. She is a proud member of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association, as well as an advocate for rights of LGBT citizens, and a big fan of 80′s and heavy metal music. She’s also a contributor to the heavy metal ezine Fourteeng.net.

For more information, please visit http://www.thelitriad.com as well as her Facebook fanpage, The Literary Triad.

The Literary Triad - http://www.thelitriad.com/#!

Michael Mandrake – http://tabooindeed.blogspot.com

BLMorticia - http://blrawiyaerotica.blogspot.com

Rawiya - http://rawiyaerotica.wordpress.com

Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/rawiyamikembl

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/TheLiteraryTriad

Kindlegraph - http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/rawiyamikembl

A rose by any other name...is The Voice

East Door: Killing of the First Born Sons 

Nope. Not talking about the show.  But the most memorable quality to any fiction. (Actually non-fiction, too, but we're focused on fiction here.)
I just finished reading my wonderful set of Rita entries for this year. And what can I tell you about the ones I have read and judged in the past 6 weeks?
Not the characters, save one, whose antics frankly irritated me by the end more than thrilled me.
Not the plots, save two, which were so very unique I smiled as I read and still do, weeks later.

West Door: Peter's Denial in the Garden

What sticks with me most are the authors' voices.
Voice, that indefinable "something" that editors go into raptures over. Voice, that sparkling-vibrant-uniquely can't-do-without quality that

makes a book memorable.

This lot I read this year had copious, delicious heaps and heaps of voice.
And yet what precisely defines Voice? Could I put my finger on it?
Ah.
Voice. That essence of prose that lifts it above the ordinary.
That quality of rhetoric that distinguishes the work from others in its genre, period and peers.
That certain something that matches the mood of the work to the characters' conflicts and the plots twists and turns.

West Door: Judas's Kiss

That element that makes the reader smile or frown or gasp. And through it all, that quality that compels the reader to have more, more, more by god! before dinner must be prepped, or the dog walked, or the bedroom beckons with the demand that you must sleep now or you cannot make it up when that darned alarm goes off!
We can speak of it with eloquence when we talk about the works of visual artists. Leonardo. Van Gogh. Picasso. Antoni Gaudi. Mies van der Rohe.
Voice. Like Jane Austen's. Daphne du Maurier's. Elmore Leonard's. Jacqueline Winspear's.
Voice. It is what I strive for. It is why I look at every sentence. Why I go with a flow. How I edit myself.
What is your definition of voice?
Which voices do you like?  What are the works that represent that author best?
Do note the above photos: These are my pictures of La Sagrada Familia, the Sacred Family Basilica in Barcelona, Spain designed by Antoni Gaudi, which years after his death is still under construction. His more classical representations on the East Door of the Nativity are as much a part of his Voice as the one's on the West Door, commonly known as the Door of Death. Here you can see the stark, harsh modern representation of Judas Kissing Christ, and the lonely and despairing Peter who has just Denied Christ in the Garden. All, to me, are stunningly beautiful evocations of Gaudi's voice.