Dubbing my Novel

This is not a teaser O_O

I’m working on an R&R of Taylor-Made, and yesterday I came to a scene I wanted to pick out and salvage from my previous version.  One of the things I did in the revision was cut out two characters, both of which were used quite a bit in the scene.  One was easily ignored, but the other had a role in the scene that I realized just couldn’t be directly given to another character without some sort of explanation.

And that’s when I was reminded of a paper I once wrote about, of all things, Sailormoon.  The paper analyzed why certain things were okay in children’s programming in Japan that were not okay in children’s programming in the United States.  Namely, LGBT characters and situations.  (The fact that Dean, the needed character that I cut out, is bisexual has no bearing on this comparison, although it is a funny coincidence).  In the paper, I pointed out the great lengths that the U.S. dubbers took to hide all things homosexual or trans.  Lesbians in a committed relationship would become cousins (and the looks between them, therefore, incestuous).  A male tea master who wears a skirt for five seconds–as part of the episode’s joke–is changed to female (making the little girl’s crush on him really awkward to dub around).  And over all that, entire conversations and plots become almost nonsensical to cover, for example, the characters joking that one of the mains is on a date with a girl or that the would-be boyfriend of one of the mains (same one, actually) is jealous that a guy–who the viewers know is really a girl–seems to be, but isn’t, flirting with her.  Because they were struggling so hard to avoid the plot points that were still there in the visuals, some conversations became awkward and convoluted.

Well.  I hope that the scene that I altered to make up for the loss of Dean is not much like the Sailormoon dub.  Unlike dubbing, I was not stuck to following the same track as the original.  In an anime, the visuals are there, and the dub must match them (to some extent, because things do occasionally get cut and in some anime dubs, completely rearranged).  In the revision, I can cut or add as needed.  On the other hand, I am trying to keep my word count down, so I did feel a little limited by what I could expand on.

So what was it I was changing?  In the original, Dean was the guy who drove everyone out of the evil corporation’s headquarters and to a safe haven.  This made sense because he was the only person in the entire book who knew where their safe haven actually was.  Once I cut him out (for word count’s sake), I had to find someone else who could find the safe haven.  That left two characters who could potentially know or receive that information.  Oops, one of them was that other character I cut.  And the second needed to stay behind while someone else drove off.  So how the heck could they find their way to the safe haven when all three characters who could possibly do it were either cut or needed elsewhere?

I did make it work, although I can’t tell you how well until I get to editing my revisions.  It involved creating the ability steer the car by remote (Dean’s still driving, basically, just not in the car) and choosing a remaining character to be the one who hits the brakes and accelerator and swerves to avoid crashing.  I know that I wouldn’t want to drive like that, but whatever.  What really worked out for me, though, is that choosing the driver and explaining how it was going to work gave me a chance to squeeze in one last little moment in this romantic subplot I added to the revision before the two characters involved got separated, so that was nice.

So that was my most recent dubbing experience.

And if you ever want a laugh, watch Sailormoon S dubbed with the subtitles on at the same time.

Or don’t.  Those American voices and dialogue were awful.

Lots of love,
Sage

Tuesday Teaser 4/8/14

A little teaser from my write-in prompt story this week.  It was a crossover, though the part I’m about to post is all Blake and Ren.  My NaNo peeps, you’ll just have to wait for Thursday to find out who I crossed them with.

Yes, I cheated a little.  We were supposed to crossover 2 characters from different novel universes we’ve written, but Blake and Ren are a packaged deal.  And the story just wasn’t working from the other POV, so I switched to Blake.

Here goes:

“Why are you having coffee so late?  You’re going to be up all night, and you don’t even do anything at night.”

I sigh into my coffee cup and try to focus on the stupid essay in front of me. “Compare two pieces of literature from similar genres.”  I chose Neuromancer–cyberpunk: not as punk as it sounds–and I, Robot–which I was disappointed to find I couldn’t rely on the movie for.

I put down the mug and pick up the pencil, ready to write a commentary sentence when Ren’s blond head rises through the table.

“Holy crap, Ren!”

He laughs, and I avoid looking up to see who overheard me.  It’s just us and the barista, so whatever.  “This is why we never go anywhere.”

“You’re why we never go anywhere.”  He flies out from the table and hovers over me, while I pick up the mug again, my train of thought completely shot.

“Your face is why we–”

The lights go out.  I’m so startled that I drop my coffee all over my essay.  “Shit.”

“Um, Blake, the lights just went out.”

Before I can throw him a no shit, Sherlock, he adds, “The emergency exit sign too.”

Yeah, so, that’s weird.

By the light of Ren, I can see my coffee’s heading for the edge of the table, and I block it with a wad of napkins.  My jeans are saved, but the essay is toast.

“Blake, I’m scared.”  Ren hides behind my chair.

Ridiculous.  My ghost is ridiculous.  “Ust-jay eep-kay ohwing-glay,” I say under my breath, certain the barista can’t hear us over the clatter he’s making behind the counter.  Sometimes I speak to Ren in Pig Latin anyway.  In Cardiff, it’s better people think you’re speaking in tongues than that you’re talking to a ghost.

Hope you enjoyed.  One of these days I’ll do a non-teaser post.

Lots of love,
Sage

Teaser Tuesday 3/25/14

Since I didn’t do a write-in prompt last week because I was busy with A PARANORMAL BROMANCE, I thought I would tease from my revision in the past week.  This requires me to type it up, so I apologize if I don’t catch any typos.

I stare at the ceiling without my glasses on, trying to figure out what I can do about Kaylee and the ghosts, but all I can focus on is the blurred pattern of the stucco.

This sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks.

I can’t believe that the only way to protect Kaylee is a daily burning of sage and her invisibility. And those still fail. She had a fresh bruise on her cheek today. She can hide it from everyone else, but not me.

Why doesn’t her grandfather get off his ass and do something? Or is it arse? Whatever it is, he needs to get off it. If he stuck around her while she’s home, she’d be safe. And can’t he just order them to stay away from her? His control’s not worth anything if he can’t.

Ren flies over, throwing wadded-up paper at me. “Stop it.” He doesn’t.

“I’m aiming for your mouth. You just lie there with it open.” One pelts me between the eyes.

“I said stop it, Ren! God!” I push myself off the bed, jam my glasses onto my face, and march into the bathroom, slamming the door just in case he didn’t get the message that I’m pissed at him.

I sit on the edge of the tub, rubbing at my temples and trying to ignore Ren’s fake-whimper on the other side of the door. He thinks that if he acts like a puppy, I”ll come pat him on the head and say it’s okay. I’m not playing that game today.

Kaylee would say I’ve already reacted too much. But she should know as well as me that ignoring ghosts doesn’t make them behave. There’s only one way to ensure that.

The book’s still there in the cabinet. Maybe if I open it, that’ll be enough to get Ren to stop bugging me.

I sit on the floor next to the cabinet and open to the chapter on controlling ghosts. I haven’t given up on the idea that there might be something Kaylee can use. A working that can be done by anyone, even those not tethered to the ghost. Or a footnote about the people will inherit them.

I start where I left off in the chapter before. The first working looks complicated. It gives the occultist permanent control over ghosts through command and will. That sounds great. It starts with the usual stuff–candles, symbols, and…ugh, it requires an animal sacrifice. That was not taught to me in Occultism 101.

I turn the page for a simpler and more tasteful working. It’s temporary and allows the occultist control through command only. Richard might use this one, though he’d have to renew it constantly. If he used the other, Kaylee would be safe by his mere will, but he seems bound to commands.

I trace my finger across the list of elements needed for the working. Two candles and a few herbs is all. No wonder it’s not that powerful. The working’s so simple that I could do it.

“Blake, come out?” Ren’s voice is more pleading than usual. “I won’t pelt you with paper balls, promise.”

I sigh and put the book away. Maybe he can feel it when I open it in here. That’s not fair to him.

I walk out the door.

“Hooray!” He tosses a bunch of shredded paper into the air, and it rains down on me like confetti, passing right through him. Typical.

Hope you enjoyed.  I tried to find something fairly self-contained and teaser-sized.

Lots of love,
Sage

Revision Experiment: Completed

Long ago (in a galaxy far, far away?  Nah, right here), I started a revision experiment on A Paranormal Bromance.  It was quite an endeavor, and I actually got overwhelmed by the project and by life last year and took one full year off from working on it.

I wrote aPB during 2012 National Novel Writing Month in a flurry of words (about 75K of them, in fact) in the month of November.  When I finished, I thought that maybe I had more revising to do than ever.  The three main problems I saw were: 1) The early-middle scenes in school and during the first dates with the love interest seemed poorly written, and quite possibly, there were too many of them.  2) I had this sense that I had written both of my POV characters–teenage boys–with the same voice.  3) Related to #2, my ghost character seemed to have a maturity problem; sometimes he acted like a child, which made the times he acted like a big brother seem out of place.  Maturing his voice would help a little with this, to remind us that, in many ways, he is more mature than the human character, even while he’s goofing off.

Usually when I edit, I handle all the big problems in the document in Word (or whichever word processor), then print out a copy and go to town on it with pens, each pass receiving a different color (like pink or green or purple.  None of this red pen stuff).  I make the corrections, do some more on-screen stuff, and move on to betas.  But I know that I would not have been able to have the attention to the language I needed if I worked with a pen on printed pages.  I’m great at picking up on tightening, and from time to time I’ll improve every sentence, it seems, in a certain scene or for a few pages.  It might depend on the day or the scene.  Certain scenes can distract me with emotions or excitement, and then I’m not picking apart language use there.  I needed to pay attention to every sentence and every paragraph.  I also needed to feel free to rewrite entire scenes from scratch, I felt.  So I decided to do this one differently.

The plan was to send the “NaNo version” of aPB to my Kindle.  There I would keep the original on screen to refer to while I rewrote the novel in a notebook, using two different colored pens, one for each POV so I always would be aware of whose voice I should be using.  Writing by hand would force me to take even more time on each word and sentence because I can’t transcribe as mindlessly by hand as I can while typing.  Separating the original from the next version, I thought, would also free me up to add stuff where needed or to write a scene from scratch when I felt that the original didn’t work but was necessary in some form.

I started the revision in January or February of 2013.  I got through 20% of the original novel (less of the next version because of cuts) before two things happened.  I approached the first scene I thought I would have to rewrite and I grew intimidated, and I started working to sell my house, which took a lot of time away that I used to spend on writing.  So aPB fell by the wayside.  I picked it back up on March 1, 2014, and two days later came across an editing challenge, where I decided I would tackle the rest of the rewrite.  I finished that process today.

Here are my observations about this process:

• Success: This allowed me to seriously focus on language. Blake’s language was simplified (maybe too much) and Ren’s was matured. There were times when I was transcribing what was already written just as I wrote it, but I looked at each word, each sentence, and each paragraph and reexamined whether there was a better way to say or describe anything.

• Success: I was better able to recognize those places where I ramble because a) I over-explain things and b) it’s NaNo and, yay, words. Or where I think it’ll be clever to make this comment here, not realizing that it’s killing the action. Yep, there were some definite darlings killed.

• Success: It made me really free to cut out full scenes and rewrite necessary conversations somewhere else. But, I have had success in that without this method

• Failure: I expected to feel more free to add stuff to the book, but I didn’t. I often had to go back to an earlier part and leave a note to remind myself to add stuff in the next round.

• Failure: At some point I planned to get off the Kindle and write scenes from scratch. But I never was able to truly depart from the original, except for the half a scene I had to add from scratch to replace a chapter I killed.

Overall: Wow, that was a lot of time, effort, paper, and ink. It took two entire blue pens (I bought these pens when I started the revision), the better part of a letter-sized notebook and 2/3 of my new notebook (though I only wrote on one side of the new one because the paper was thin). It took a lot longer than my usual editing method, and I’m pretty sure that if I had been doing it the usual way, I would have finished it last year even with the craziness that took over my life.

I don’t know if I’ll ever use this method again.  It was definitely worth it for this book because it forced me to be consistent in each POV’s language use, but for the big rewrites, it didn’t do anything.  I might even have been too scared to deviate that far from the original with this method.  However, I removed a lot of stuff I was unhappy with, and that made the scenes I planned to rewrite a lot more tolerable, and hopefully, so did what I did revise within them.

Next step is to type it up, but I don’t know when I’ll get to it, considering Camp NaNo is coming and I have TWO books bursting to be written.  I guess that’s what you get for taking a year off!

Lots of love,
Sage

Teaser Tuesday – Sleight of Hand, part 2

I’m a little late on this, but here’s the second half of “Screwed Up,” using Apollo, a character from H/V.  The first half can be found here.

“Kyle, I just need to know that when it’s your turn to pick up Apollo, you’ll pick him up.”

We’ve finally gotten back to me, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.  “I could,” I say, my voice very quiet, “you know, just walk home or take a bus.”

Nobody hears me.  They just keep arguing as if I’m not here.

What they do hear, what we all hear, is the monster-like groan coming from the other room.  My first thought is that the machine he was building has turned Brendan into a werewolf or Godzilla, but the pops and fizzes that follow it mean something else.

I reach the door first, but Mom and Dad are right behind me.  The machine crumples in on itself, just like I worry I’m going to do all the time.  Electricity crackles around it.

Brendan runs towards us.  “In the office!  It’s going to blow!”  He dives through the door, just as the machine explodes, sending pieces flying everywhere.  Dad grabs Mom and pushes her against the wall next to the window, shielding her from the debris.

And I just stand there watching it.  A piece of metal zips towards my face and nicks my temple, but I’m too mesmerized to even flinch.

I wonder what it was supposed to do.  Not this.

When things have settled down and Mom has finished screaming at Dad, she wipes at my temple with a tissue.  “You’re going to ruin your looks, and then what can you rely on?”

I didn’t even know I had looks to rely on.  She’s always nagging about them.

Dad and Brendan dig through the debris and try to figure out what went wrong, but Mom’s decided this is enough excitement for one day and drags me out of the workshop.  And I do mean drag because I’m still watching Dad and Brendan and wondering what could have caused the machine to implode like that.

I drop the screw on the floor before we get to the door.  It feels like it belongs in here.

You know, I can’t even tell you where I got it from.

Hope you enjoyed.  I don’t know how sleight-of-handy it was, but it was fun to write.

Lots of love,
Sage

Teaser Tuesday – Sleight of Hand

Last week, the write-in prompt was called “Sleight of Hand.”  I won’t be writing for this week’s prompt, so I thought I’d split the scene in two for today and next Tuesday, since you need the whole thing to see the sleight of hand.  I actually found the prompt difficult because I’m great at sleight of hand for long fiction, but to do it in something that was about 1K was a lot tougher.  The point isn’t really to be tricky, more about the author saying, “Look over there,” and doing something else while you’re looking.  I don’t know if this was sleight of hand-y enough, but I enjoyed writing the piece.

Apollo is a character from Hero/Villain, but this would be set long before H/V takes place.

I’m used to the sound of explosions and the feeling of implosion.

When your dad has aspirations of becoming a superscientist, there’s a lot of trial and error, and the errors sometimes mean things get blown up.

When your mom spends your whole life telling you what’s wrong with you, you live your life around the void in your gut that keeps gnawing at your insides.

“Keep up, Apollo,” she says as she barrels through Dad’s cheap, rented workshop.  I had paused to admire the sheer size of Dad’s latest experiment and to feel the electricity humming through the metal strut I touch in awe.  When Mom speaks, I dutifully follow.  But it wouldn’t be Mom, if that was the end of her complaints.  “Watch your posture.  And try to smile sometimes.”

The demands have the opposite effect on me.  I hunch over more as that pit in my stomach grows, and smiling is the last thing I could do.  I don’t know how she manages to fake smiles, to act like she’s happy when she isn’t.  I try to ignore the feeling, to ignore her, and play with the screw I’ve picked up somewhere, tracing the threads with my jagged, bitten thumbnail.

She lets out a sound that’s between a sigh and a grunt and grabs my other hand, pulling me past my dad’s sole employee, Brendan.  I like Brendan and his nerdy t-shirts–though I don’t know what his current one, “The Cake is a Lie” means–but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know I exist.  He’s tightening some connections on the machine, which takes up a third of the room.  I want to ask him what it is–Dad would never tell me–but Mom’s got a laser focus on Dad’s office in the back.  He has a window into the workshop, but the blinds are drawn on it so he can’t see us coming.

Mom doesn’t even bother knocking before bursting in.  “Kyle.”  She shoves me into a chair under the window and leans across Dad’s desk so he has no choice but to look up at her.

“Diana, what are you doing here?”

“Delivering your son, who you were supposed to pick up from school today.  The office called me to pick him up.  I was in a meeting with an important director, and I had to leave because nobody could find you.  You know what this could mean for me.”

Mom thinks she’s always on the verge of making it as an actress, but she’s only ever been in local stage plays, even though she’s always “meeting someone who can make her a star.”

“I’m sorry, I was busy.  I forgot.”

“Yes, I can see how busy you are here”–she points to the papers he had been reading on his desk–“while that boy does all the work outside.”

I peek through the blinds to watch Brendan.  If they’re going to talk about me like I’m not here, I’d rather be out in the workshop, where the interesting stuff is happening.  Brendan’s stopped working on the machine itself.  Now he’s on the laptop nearby, so it’s a lot less exciting out there too.  I roll the screw between my fingers and listen to the stupid conversation continue.

“I have to do more than build the thing, Diana.  I had a meeting with the head of the superheroes’ League.  Do you know what that could mean for me?  We’re always talking about your chance to make it, but this is real solid work, and that meeting could be the difference between me working in this rundown place for the rest of my life or getting a contract that could be worth millions and fund future experiments.”

“Please, you’d have to get one of those things to work first!”

I let the blind fling back into place and glance up at the two of them.  They’re both red in the face.  They’ve forgotten me, which is as bad as them arguing about me.  Who wants to pick up Apollo?  Nobody.

I slump down in the chair.  I hadn’t even noticed how tight my fist was around the screw, but I release it and find an X imprinted on my palm.

“Every piece of superscience tech ever created had to go through several incarnations before it worked.  They’re called ‘experimental’ for a reason.”

I wish I could go through a new incarnation.  The Apollo experiment has failed.

Hope you enjoyed.

Lots of love,
Sage

Tuesday Teaser – Cheerful Spectator

Since I’m writing a short every week, I should have something to pull from each week for Teaser Tuesday, but since my NaNo peeps could potentially read the story here before my Thursday night write-in, I’m going to pull from the week before (until I have novel stuff to use, obviously).  I actually haven’t written this week’s write-in story anyway.

This is from last week’s story.  The prompt was (for whatever reason) called “The Cheerful Spectator,” and the goal was to have a POV character who couldn’t influence the stuff going on.  These are the same characters as the Valentine’s Day teaser.  Laurie = Ren, and this is set in the past, before Blake could see and hear him.

“What’s going on?” Blake asked.  “What are you doing with my Hot Wheels track?”

“Magic,” Joy said gleefully.  And then to my dismay, she began to say words that sounded an awful lot like how I’d try to pronounce the words in that book.

“Joy!”  I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I doubted very much that she would end up with Tinker Bell, even if she recited the words correctly.  I flew towards her and rammed into an invisible wall.  The track, the stupid circle that the picture showed keeping the fairy creatures in, was keeping me out.  “Blake, do something.”  Humans could break circles more easily than spirits.  But Blake was frozen, apparently mesmerized by what had to be the first serious working he’d ever seen.  “Get Shannon!  Get your grandmother!” I yelled at him, but my words were falling on deaf ears.

I should have gotten Shannon—it wasn’t like I was doing any good there anyway—but I couldn’t leave them.  They were just kids, and Joy was doing a working that was way beyond them.

There was a burst of light, and I instinctively drifted back, shielding my eyes with one hand.  Suddenly Blake’s hand grabbed my other one, although I can’t tell you how he found it.  I squeezed his hand, and if I could have held my breath, I would have.

The light faded, and Blake looked at his hand clasping my invisible one and let go quickly, looking flustered.  I might have been insulted or amused, but I was too focused on Joy.  Three balls of light circled her, as if examining her.  The lights changed color, randomly.  I didn’t know if they were fairies or what, but they sure did look like they could be.

Luckily, Blake didn’t move.  If he broke the circle now, he’d free the beings, and we didn’t know what they were.  On the other hand, if they were malevolent, I’d rather have them out here than stuck in there with Joy.

Joy was delighted.  “See?  I’m just like Grandpa.  I got the fairies to come.”

“Uh huh.  Just don’t move too suddenly,” I said, frustrated that she couldn’t hear me.

One light circled Joy’s feet, as if checking out her pink sandals, while another wove itself through her hair, leaving glowing rainbow sparkles in the brown curls her mother had put in her hair, taking advantage of Joy’s princess phase.

The third light floated in front of her face.

“Hi, I’m Joy.  What’s your name?” she asked the light.  The light hovered before her eyes, and then it touched her right between them.  I like to believe it was a true fairy and it kissed her there.  Then, as sudden as they had come, the lights disappeared, leaving Joy alone in the circle.

That’s when Blake finally had the bright idea to go find his grandmother.  He bolted from the room, calling for her.

I moved my hand towards the circle and was relieved to see it go through.  Joy watched me as I approached and put my hand in her still-glowing hair.

“Laurie,” she said, half-scolding me, half-laughing at me, “you’re a boy.”

I met her eyes and was surprised to find that I was truly meeting them.  For once she was looking right at me instead of in my general direction.  She, more than anyone else who can only sense me, sometimes still seems to have that ability, but in that moment, she could see me.

I put a finger to my lips.  Shannon thought it was hilarious that Blake and Joy thought “Laurie” was a girl.  She thought it was easier to explain me as her best friend, rather than her old boyfriend, particularly since I’m not Blake’s grandfather and will always be a teenager no matter how old Shannon gets.

Joy mimicked my finger-to-the-lips move, and I winked at her.  I scooped some rainbow lights from her hair and blew them into the air, where they floated like bubbles.  Joy danced around, waving her arms in the air trying to catch them.  I had no idea what they were—maybe fairy dust or fairy droppings, for all I knew–but they each eventually blinked out.

When they were all gone, Joy spun around until she was facing me, but I could tell she couldn’t see me anymore.  My spirits fell; it felt like a loss, rather than a return to the status quo.

I don’t know if I’ll ever write a sequel to aPB–I have to edit the thing first–but if I do, I’m pretty sure this scene will feature.

Lots of love,
Sage

Weekly Write-in Prompts

I have always been a little wary of writing prompts.  To me, writing prompts have always felt like they were writing for the sake of writing.  I’m talking about the type where you, for example, write a detailed description of something every day.  The kind that are meant to work on technique, but not to tell a story.

Well, recently my write-in group has decided that we’re going to do a prompt every week, with a focus on technique.  This sounds like the type of thing I was complaining about, but instead I’ve found that the prompts we’ve been choosing have inspired their own stories or parts of stories.  We’ve mainly been using prompts from a book called The 3 a.m. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform your Fiction by Brian Kiteley.  As the title suggestions, these prompts aren’t your normal prompts.  Sure you have things like writing a scene while focusing on scent (totally the kind of prompt that I’d have rolled my eyes over before), except the prompt suggestions go beyond that, suggesting how you can incorporate that initial prompt idea and make it richer.  So the scent-writing prompt became (as interpreted to us in our weekly write-in e-mail):

Describe a place by its scent. Don’t let the olfactory sense overwhelm your description. Instead, use it as an unconscious trigger of memory.

Well, upon reading that, my imagination takes me somewhere totally different from just “write a scene, focusing on scent.”  In fact, I do my little Sage Logic thing, and go with the last POV character you would expect me to for this prompt.

The one who can’t smell.

Yep, I totally established in A Paranormal Bromance that Ren, my ghost, cannot smell.  So instead of using his best friend Blake, who hates scented things and would be perfect for this prompt, I use the one who can’t possibly describe a place by its scent.  Or can he?  The “place” part of it was important to me too.  Once I established that I was going to use Ren (and, to some extent, olfactophobe Blake), I knew I had to draw on the magic-based scents that they would find the magic store where Blake’s cousin works.  Since I always had this romantic notion that Ren would eventually fall for Blake’s cousin, I had the beginnings of a story right there.  They go in, scents are everywhere, Blake goes to the back to escape them, leaving Ren to flirt with the girl who can’t see or hear him.  And from here, it’s the “memory” part of the prompt that really allows me to complete the prompt.  Ren can’t smell now, but he’s surrounded by scents he recognizes from before he died, and he ends up relating Blake’s cousin to the romance with Shannon he had before dying thanks to those scents.  The sage she’s smudging reminds him of how Shannon’s house smelled after she cleansed it.  The patchouli in her hair and sandalwood on her skin reminds him how Shannon smelled, since she used them the same way.  He has an unspoken moment of relating Shannon to Blake’s cousin and believing that he can smell everything in that room, and then the atmosphere is shattered by outsiders.

So, yeah, it managed to take the type of prompt that I dislike and turn it into something that was easy to build off of into a story.

Not every prompt is that easy.  I thought this week’s, which I chose because it seemed like my kind of thing, would be a piece of cake, but I find myself stuck on it.  There are a few moments of idea, but nothing that inspires a short story out of me.

Of course, then there are weeks like a few weeks ago, where I was inspired to write a 9K story.  That was a ton of fun.  At least for me.  I can’t speak to my NaNo Peeps who then had a 9K story in front of them, instead of a 500-word story.

In the end, we decided that nobody had to feel obligated to do the prompts, but I’ve never missed one yet.  They’re meant to keep us writing on weeks where we’re stuck on or in between projects, while also learning.  And I must say, it’s nice to have a new story each week and then almost immediately share it (nobody has to share either, although we always have).  It’s a sweet bit of instant gratification.  And it’s already inspired two (but really three) novels, which, in the end, is where my strengths lie in writing.  In fact, my last one continued with the Ren and Blake’s cousin storyline, just in case I ever write a sequel to that book.

Anyway, despite my initial wariness over writing prompts, these are proving to be lots of fun.

How do you feel about writing prompts?  Or do you have any good or bad ones you’ve done?

Lots of love,
Sage

 

 

Valentine’s Day Teaser

I haven’t posted in a while, but, hey, I’ve barely written in a year too, that’s to be expected.  The last book I wrote that I loved was 2 NaNoWriMos ago, and that was A Paranormal Bromance, which is what I’m supposed to be revising these days.  In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d post a little date scene from aPB and show you just how annoying it might be if you had to bring your own personal ghost as chaperone on your dates.  This scene is actually from the POV of Ren, the ghost.  Shannon was Ren’s girlfriend before he became a ghost (and also Blake’s grandmother).

Blake must be the worst air hockey player in the world.  I try to help him out, blowing on the puck so that it falls into Julie’s goal, but it doesn’t seem to help his score go up.

I suppose that yelling “Geronimo!” every time he goes to hit the puck is probably not the most helpful thing I could do, but it’s fun.

“You really are bad at this,” I tell him.  I poke his arm a few times.  “You should let me play for you.”

“Not now,” he says under his breath.

Julie smiles.

I think she thinks he’s crazy.  Which is totally okay with me.  I mean, if a girl can’t handle a little crazy, what kind of girl is she to date my Blake?  Shannon would not approve.

I slam my hand down on top of the puck just after she hits it, and it stops dead.

Julie stares at it as it spins in place where I left it.  “Wow.”

“Don’t say anything.  It will only encourage him.”

“Like I need you to say something to encourage me.  Hey, you should offer her a soda or something.  Girls get thirsty, you know.  God, you’re really bad at this.”

I float off and leave them alone for a little while.  Nobody can say that I am not sometimes considerate.

I’ve never been to an arcade before.  It is really loud and colorful and dark at the same time.  I watch over people’s shoulders, cheering them on even though they can’t hear me.  Maybe my positive vibes are enough to get them a good score.  When a little boy loses a racing game, I reconsider this viewpoint.

Blake is playing a game where he controls a claw and tries to grab a toy from inside.  I know this game.  We had them on the boardwalk in California.  I won a stuffed bear for Shannon way back when.  She doesn’t have it anymore.  She had me to remember me by instead, I guess.

Blake fails to get anything, so Julie takes a turn.  She gets a little stuffed zombie.  It makes her laugh.  She’s clearly not as afraid of zombies as she is of ghosts.

“Ooh, try again, Blake,” I say, getting an idea.  I shift through the machine and end up in the center.

“That’s cheating, man.”

Julie follows his gaze over to me, and probably figures out who he’s talking to because she doesn’t look hurt like she did last time he said something mean to me.

“Come on, I’ll help you win her a teddy bear.”

“Do you want a teddy bear?” he asks her.

She hugs her zombie.  “I got a zombie.  Teddy bears need not apply.”

“She is weird,” I say.  This prompts a rare smile from him.

“How about a soda?” he says.

“That, you can get me.”

I punch the air, but Blake’s totally ignoring me, leading Julie to the refreshments counter.  They play a few more games, but I’m over it.  I sit on the edge of a pinball machine and watch them from afar.  After those first stupid attempts at conversation that Blake tried, he’s hit his stride, and I can see him telling Julie about his music choices.  I know because he’s air drumming.  Julie must have different tastes because he makes a face at her after she starts talking, but the thing is…it’s not like it’s stopped him from talking to her.  He’s still interested.  He doesn’t even look uncomfortable trying to figure out how to relate to her.

He looks happy.

In three years, I’ve never seen Blake look happy.

I lean my elbows on my knees and my chin on my folded arms, just watching them.  It’s nice.  I’ve been trying to make Blake smile like that for years.  Maybe they’ll fall in love and get engaged and get married and live happily together forever.  He’s already older than I was when I got engaged to Shannon, after all.  He’ll always be older than me now.  Much too old to have never fallen in love.

This is good.

I’m bored.

Yeah, enough of this.  I take off and somersault through the air to the refreshment stand.  Someone has left their paper boat of onion rings sitting on this counter for fifteen minutes, and I don’t think they’re coming back for them.  With some concentration, I scoop the container into my hand.  It takes no concentration, however, to pick up an onion ring and fling it towards Blake’s table.  The first toss misses it’s goal, bouncing off the table and landing on the floor, but the second catches on the straw of his soda cup and twirls around it before settling on the lid.

I throw another, hoping to succeed again at this game of onion ring toss, but this one goes wild and hits Blake in the temple.  “Hey!”

“Oops.”

Hopefully now that I’m out of the writing doldrums, I’ll be posting more.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Lots of love,

Sage

Editing Experiment

You know me, I’m a mad scientist when I’m not writing, doing experiments every day.  But this time around I’m trying an experiment with revisions on A Paranormal Bromance, which you might remember was my NaNoWriMo novel last year.  Or maybe not, since it was NaNo, and who has time to write then?

As I wrote aPB, I knew I was going to have to rewrite at least one of my main character’s voices, possibly both.  I also noted a ton of structural problems, some because I’ve had the same problems in the past.  And then I knew there were things I wanted to add throughout the novel and characters that needed to change.  Knowing that the way I usually edit might not be effective for these edits, I decided to try something new.

For aPB, I’m rewriting the book from scratch in a notebook.  I have the original on the Kindle, and I’ll admit to referring to it a lot, but by writing out even the sentences, paragraphs, and scenes I want to keep intact, I still force myself to look at each sentence, paragraph, and scene and think about it, the way that I sometimes don’t while writing the first draft because I might be in the zone, or even just plodding along to get words down (because, let’s face it, it was NaNo).  It’s also easier to cut something and fix that cut when writing it anew, as opposed to trying to squeeze transition or info into lines that are already there on the screen.  For me, it’s just a mindset thing.  If I’m already rewriting it, it’s easier to change or add to it, at least in my brain.

I haven’t gotten to a part where I have to add more than a line or a feeling or descriptive details, so I don’t know how well this experiment will work there, but I’m excited to find out.

At the very least, this helps me change the voice and to create stronger sentences and paragraphs, so no matter what, I see it as a great exercise.

According to my Kindle, I am currently 13% done, but that’s a bogus number, because it will depend on what I add or subtract.  I’m also debating a plot/characterization point, and I’m sort of at a standstill until I decide it, but I don’t think that will last long.  Worst case scenario, I’ll flip a coin 😉

Anyway, I’m excited to see where this new experiment leads me.  It feels productive right now, but we’ll see how I feel at 30% or 50% or 80% when the end looks so close, but so far.

What revision techniques do you use? Do you rewrite or revise within the same document you wrote the novel in?

Lots of love,Sage