How I see writing

How I see writing

Recent reads grid

Jennivie's bookshelf: read

Burning Bridges
Set Adrift
Awakenings
Ripples in the Dirac Sea
Love Life & Circumstance
The Field of Someone Else's Dreams
Far & Away
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
Hamlet
Manga Classics: Les Miserables
The Pigeon Needs a Bath!
A Brief Respite
A Better Man
Drawing with Your Artist's Brain: Learn to Draw What You See -- Not What You Think You See
Ruby the Red Fairy
Alice in Wonderland
Always
Sketching
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Fast-Talking Dolphin


Jennivie's favorite books »
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Monday, August 25, 2014

What’s Next? Fabulous Five Blog Hop!



Wooohoo! My very first blog hop! My very first blog anything, actually! I am honored to have been invited to the Fabulous Five Blog Hop by the talented Jayson James who I am fortunate to have met during a Facebook event and have kept tabs on ever since.


What am I working on?
Nothing! For once! I'm taking a few days off -to update my blog for instance and READ- after finishing a novella for the Goodreads group M/M Romance's event Love's Landscapes. It is the longest work of mine to be published to date and I'm pretty stoked about that. With any luck it will be out in a few days and I can join the ranks. Update: It's up! Randy's Ghost by William Tate. At the bottom of the page is a link to download it.

Soon, I will resume working on the M/M book I first began during Nano 2012 (NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month: Each year in November people all over the world attempt to write 50,000 word novels, despite illness, family obligations, holidays, writer's block, and the gauntlet of excuses they come up with to NOT write.) I missed last year, sadly, but before that I was 3/3.

Nano 2012 Working title The Voice- A WWII memoir of male lovers split up by fate becomes a bestseller and an elderly man listening to the radio interview recognizes the voice of his long lost love. The story follows each part of the pair, detailing important parts in their lives from before meeting until long after life destroys them.

I'm truly excited to get this novel out into the world and I hope that those that have been waiting for it won't have to for much longer.

Multiple collaborations with my long time writing partner are in my future, namely further developing and bringing several of our role play creations to light. Another novel is in the planning stages with a different author. 2015 might be a big year for me!


How does my work differ from others in its genre?
At this stage in the game, I really don't know how to answer this but I'll take a shot at it. I've been told, since I first began trying to write books in Junior High, that I have a way of making my characters come to life and that I can make you feel like a fly on the wall. My work differs, I guess, in that I'm all up in the character's heads so that you can be too. Dreams are a recurring theme and one other thing that has become quite prevalent in my books is a story within a story, worlds within worlds, and I can't come up for a reason for that.


Why do I write what I do?
I currently write mostly romances of the gay variety and the reason for it is that I began writing m/m as a role player and it struck a chord with me. Looking back at my first novels you can tell that I was far more adept at getting inside the male characters' heads than the female leads. I've always enjoyed it. Over time I started to read it too. Nowadays, I enjoy all genres but primarily read and write M/M and paranormal romances in general. I started writing the tragedy filled pasts of my male and female leads early in life to deal with things in my world, real, imagined, or dreamed. I was writing about kissing before I ever experienced it. I wrote about tough subjects like rape and abuse from nightmares I had that haunted me. I'm drawn to the damaged ones. Many of my early stories were sparked by a dream.


How does my writing process work?

At times I wonder IF it works. I write down whatever the voices tell me to, mostly.

When I don't have a dream that tells me what I need to write, I pick up things from random places. Someone will say something, or I'll see a picture, or hear a song, or a scent will take me someplace in my head, and I'll jot it down for later. Often at least a few lines of scene or dialogue will go with it. Music is important but I seldom get to listen to it during writing sessions. If I am alone, I will put on music, if not, I work with all of the background noise of my family.

At times, like at the beginning of Nanowrimo for instance, I simply sit and wrack my brain, play the 'what if?' game, or perhaps find a random plot generator and hit it until something sinks in, then whatever pour out pours out. I write in a rather chaotic way, scene bits and dialogue laid down that may or may not fit together. I then try to get them to work and sometimes they don't until much later in the process, sometimes not at all. I tend to have what I believe is a clear beginning, end, and middle in place right away and a few other key scenes. Pulling it all together and adding the between huge scenes part can be extremely daunting. A few of my books died at this point and I can only hope to resurrect them in the future. The characters in my head want to do and say what they want to do and say, an unruly bunch, or, worse, they will not talk to me at all. Both afflictions can throw a story off kilter. I have tried outlining but that usually freezes up the process. I'm open to the idea of it though. I am thinking about trying for once to outline everything from the beginning, if I can get over the tediousness, and see how it goes. We all work in different ways.

If I am working with a partner, the entire procedure is different. You bounce things off each other, it's give and take. You feed your next piece of writing from theirs, merge it, marry it. I am in awe of the things created this way.


Who’s Next on the Blog Hop?
Presenting 5 people I have the insane honor of knowing and am very proud of!

Alex Jones who writes m/m romance and fantasy and is a wonderful person to talk to, that I now call friend.

DS Kenn who recently released her first book, the introduction to her paranormal romance series, and is a long time friend of mine. Her post is here.

Eric Thornton who writes m/m stories and is a great guy and an inspiration.

Kindle Alexander who is another long time friend of mine that writes romances in several categories, most often m/m.

JT Cheyanne and VL Moon aka Lachi and Laziel Denali  who are two more long time friends that write together, and separately, in the romance genre, mostly m/m.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Thoughts after Robin Williams' passing

A large handful of years back I remember realizing that I would have to watch my favorite actors and other celebrities die, one after another after another the older I got. I specifically named Robin Williams in a small list of people that would destroy me with their passing and I said that I needed to watch all of his films. I haven't and I realized, the day he passed, that now I'd be able to catch up, giving a laugh with tears streaming.

When he turned 50, I thought about it all over again. At the time I was worried because to me 50 was getting up there in years. Now I'm looking at his reports and thinking...

"Just 63?"

63. That's less than 30 years away for me now. That's much too soon. Regardless of the how's or the why's of his untimely death, regardless of what you may think of it or him, I'm weeping. I may yet address the depression topic, having been intimately acquainted with both it and its cousin, suicidal tendencies, but not in this post. All I can think about, besides his family, is all the laughs WE won't be laughing, all of the joy and pain we won't be experiencing because of a new movie or stand up or a quote. How Koko the gorilla, another childhood favorite of mine, is mourning the loss of her human friend, Robin. And, of course, his family and closest friends, fellow actors, the regular waitress at his favorite restaurant....

I watched Dead Poet Society last night (cried even in the good moments) and thought about one of the character in it. All the plays, movies, the life that person would have lived, is gone. Never happened. Snuffed out. Erased. I wept inside. I feel that way about Robin William now. Grief over him and the life he had yet to live, the movies and shows, his family, the love, laughter and tears that will never be, not just for him but for all of us. Regardless of why he is gone the fact of the matter is HE IS GONE and the world will never be the same, at least mine won't.
#RIPRobinWilliams