A few changes

So, I've been thinking about this poor neglected thing. I had visions of followers and book promotions fueling my initiative to write here, which of course was rather silly. You can't go from known to unknown just through a blog.

That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon it, but there are some changes in order. Not such a bad thing!

I've been on twitter a lot lately for National Novel Writing Month, using the word sprints to help get me through writing. I've started to enjoy and use twitter more than I thought I would. I've gotten a few more followers, and had a bit of fun. So, why am I not doing that here?

Instead of just being about the book and promotion, it's time to use this to talk about the novelist (gasp, shock, and amazement) and writing in a world that's not reading as much as it used to.

Aside from writing another novel for NaNoWriMo, I've been editing another novel, called All the Good Gods Are Dead. (I think the title needs work. I love it, but it's so long.) That one I plan to publish as a webnovel, kind like a webcomic but with mostly words and a few pictures splashed at the top. It's one of those stories I feel needs a few visual cues, but I don't want it to be overwhelmed with pictures, because the descriptions and inner dialogue is too important. So, I'm going to be trying something new. More on that later. Right now, the pages are full of red ink (I'll snap a picture of that at some point), and scribbles on the back of the pages. I will say that editing is kind of enjoyable, more than I thought when I first started editing like I did for Corruption.

All the Good Gods is another NaNo novel, and as such the writing is usually a little rough. But the story is so solid, and there are a few lines that when I read, I stopped and read them again because I just loved the word play.

That's what writing really is to me, playing with words. Changing words, changing the way sentences should be to convey a certain message. I like challenging the way readers think, giving them images they've never thought of before, much less see daily. This urge to play with words and make people think unfortunately seems to lead me to plots that are less than mainstream. I think that is part of my problem. I'm not into what's popular in the world of reading. I like complexities and putting my characters into situations that make people uncomfortable. I could never write a book like Twilight, and if I do, I want one of you readers to come find me and whack me with the Lord of the Rings, one of the versions where it's consolidated into one massive tome. I don't like writing romance for the sake of romance. It's not engaging to me, and I've never understood the appeal. I don't mind romance within a novel, especially if it develops over the course of the entire book. But when I see a cover of a book with a man whose muscles glisten in the sun and a woman pressed against his side, leg raised and hair flying back in the wind, I gag.

I actually worry sometimes that I make my main characters too appealing. I try to keep them real, but like your children, they become perfect to me in their imperfections. When you adore them, even when they look like some sort of child's nightmare, I fear they sometimes come across as being too perfect. Not that anyone sane would look at Fetish and go "Oh, he's so handsome! I want to take him home and show him to my daughter, she could use an attractive fellow like that." That, by the way, is the MC from All the Good Gods. His nickname (using the term loosely) is butterfly. Interested yet?

And then there's Axsis, who had the misfortune of being transformed into some sort of monster, and hates himself. He's also gone rather crazy. His is another novel that's finished, but needs a lot of edits. I would never send my future daughters to prom with him. But he's one of my favorite characters, maybe because he's quite literally gone insane from captivity, and the entire story is told from his perspective. It's interesting thinking about my life when I wrote Axsis' A Spider's Tale. It's a very dark book, and a friend of mine described reading it as "walking through barbed wire, but in a good way." I consider it a high compliment. I don't think reading a book should be easy, and I'm not talking about language. If I don't finish a book with at least a "Huh. Interesting." then I don't think it was worth the read.

Of course, I know a lot of other people don't think the same way. They want light "summer reading," whatever that means. I want to be challenged. I hope you, dear readers, want to be challenged, too. So here goes, the start of the rebirth of the blog. Thoughts from an overworked writer. I don't know how consistent updates will be, because at the moment I am working two part-time jobs and writing to make ends meet. My roommate is also working two jobs, one part-time and one full-time, and selling her crafts and costumes on the side in our desperate attempt to pay for a second car (one car and four jobs is hell), and an apartment. Welcome to the modern era.

Until next time, dear readers.