You Know You're A Geek When...

Back in October I started a new story featuring a Sandman named Nocturne. But that's not what we're talking about today. You see, when I write, I write oldschool. I think I've mentioned this before, but in case you missed it, I'm not talking about typewriters. I mean oldschool, oldschool.

I write with a pencil and a notebook. That's right. A pencil. But it's not just any pencil. It's the Pentel Techniclick II. Oh yeah.

I first discovered these mechanical pencils back in college. I think. It really has been a long time. Maybe I found them in high school. Wherever it was, I quickly realized that these weren't the typical mechanical pencils. Oh no. These babies were the best mechanical pencils on the planet. 8 out of 10 times if I dropped the pencil, the lead didn't break. They were comfortable, I liked the way they wrote, and even though I always ended up snapping off part of the cap so I'd never be able to hang it on a pocket (oh wah, big deal), they were basically flawless in my eyes.

I'd even introduced them to my father who quickly came to the same realization I did. The Pentel Techniclick II was awesome. Even he noticed that the lead never seemed to break when the pencil was dropped. So it wasn't just me.

So big dea, it's a mechanical pencil. True - except then Pentel stopped making them.

*cue horror movie scream*

So what the heck am I doing talking about a pencil that you can't even buy? Well, sure, it does suck to be you, but this just goes to show that if you're like me and love to write the super oldschool way, how much of a total geek you are when something like this happens:

Out of a mix of emotions and being on a customer service contacting kick, I emailed Pentel and basically told them that I thought they'd made a huge mistake in ending their production of the Techniclick II. I explained that nothing else since has ever compared (true) and that I hadn't purchased a new pencil since my last purchase of Techniclick IIs which was during college around the 2005 mark (true). I was down to my last 0.7 pencil (the others having disappeared in some fashion and my 0.5 pencil had broken after being in my purse (my fault). I said that I didn't know what I was going to do if my 0.5 pencil went bye-bye.

So it was part complaint, part reprimand, part praise. And we all know that these people never respond.

Except in this case. I received an email from Pentel from their customer service head honcho saying that, naturally, they were sorry for not making the Techniclick II anymore but guess what? She'd found some in a warehouse just hanging out and would I like some sent to me for free?

OMGYESPLZNOW. Pretty much sums up my reaction. She'd even asked what size I preferred, 0.7 or 0.5. I like 0.7 but said I'd take whatever they had because I was beyond the point of caring about specifics at that point. As long as I got some, I would be happy as a clam.

Sure enough, a handful of days later I got six (six!) Techniclick II Pentel pencils in the mail, all bright and shiny and new. I gave three to my dad and kept three for myself. It was like Christmas came early. I think the customer service woman probably thought I had issues becuase of how many times I thanked her and how excited I was.

But honestly, when you get free stuff in the mail and you really love it, what's not to be excited about? And these pencils? I'm in writer heaven.

My name is Nicole T. and I am a total geek.

When It Hits You

At around 12:20am, I was moseying around online (since late at night is the only time I have to myself these days - or at least it seems like it) and checking various blogs. I saw a new post over at BookEnds, LLC and decided to read it.

It's a great post. It's all about agents (or at least in this case, Jessica Faust) being all yippy-skippy about when calling an author for representation and/or about a book deal with a publisher. The pause when the author might scream with amazement or joy. Or do the "telephone happy dance" (my favorite part of that post). Even better, she showed the agent's excitement on the other end. Actually waiting for the author to phone back with (hopefully) a yes. Then she wants to scream and do the telephone happy dance. It was a really nice look into an agent's side of things and made a lot of people smile and laugh, myself included.

I even left a comment about how one day I hoped to have an agent as excited about me as she gets about her clients.

And then I thought about it a little.

And then I got a little bummed out.

And then I just burst into tears.

I sat here in front of my computer, head in my hands, and cried. Because I don't have an agent that's excited about me or my work. Because I'm tired. Just tired. Normally I'm the one who tosses aside rejection letters and tries again. Because I know rejection is just a part of the writing life. And I'm always saying, "I don't care if I'm 90 years old - I'm getting published!"

But I got that dark, bottomless pit feeling inside me at that very moment. No one wants me. No one loves my writing. And the worst of it is, I haven't even been waiting as long as some people. I know I haven't. But I've been working my fingers to the bone, money is frighteningly tight around here, and I've barely had any time to write for myself for the past several months.

And I'm tired.

Still, it's good to get that out once and a while. I cried and sniffled for a good twenty minutes or so. I'm sure once I hit the hay and get a good rest (if possible - I never did like my mattress), I'll wake up refreshed and ready to go again and be able to look at the future with hope and eagerness.

I think I'd better do that.


Tired.

Shutting Down the Internal Editor

I'm actually writing this in October, but since the Writing Meme is going on, I figured it would be best just to program it to show up in November to avoid double-posts.

Anywho, at the time I was cruising through the Absolute Write blog update forum and found this blog entry. It's pretty hard not to relate to that letter. Internal editor getting in the way all the time, pointing out stuff that's wrong, deadlines, all sorts of annoying crap. I know, the whole internal editor thing and the way we writers react to it makes it sound like we have multiple personalities, but I'd like to point something out to you.

First of all, if you didn't think we had multiple personalities before hearing the way we talk about internal editors makes me wonder about you. We have dozens of characters bouncing around our heads all the time, and it takes an internal editor bit to make you voice such concerns? Geezo.

Second of all, most writers, when asked, will mention something about an internal editor and often include how it's a bitch. It's like there's this other little part of your brain reminding you of all this other junk while you're just trying to write and get the freakin' words on the page. Maybe it's left brain vs. right. I don't know. What I do know is that it is possible to shut it down.

While Ms. Morrigan wrote a letter, I left a comment on her blog stating that writing letters to my internal editor doesn't work. She ignores them. Likewise, talking to her and telling her to shut up doesn't work. I've had to resort to more drastic measures to put her in her place.

When working on most books, she was never a problem. I'd just breeze on through, la-de-da. But that was before I went to Seton Hill and discovered everything WRONG with my writing. Suddenly my internal editor didn't suck at her job (if she even existed in the first place) and had plenty of cool new rules and regulations to implement. So once I began to write my newest manscript, she wouldn't shut up. Let me repeat that: My internal editor would NOT SHUT UP. I rewrote the beginning at least five times. I actually lost count. I struggled with word choice, created scenes that refused to work. Could not decide upon proper names. Nothing was perfect, and that was the problem.

First drafts are crap, to be base about it. They're the ideas slapped down without everything being perfect. That's what revision is for. We all know this. Revision is for fine tuning those good ideas, tweaking scenes or cutting them, and fixing up all the spelling and grammar we goofed on the first time around. My internal editor, however, kept insisting everything be perfect the first time. There is no chance of this happening. Ever.

Finally, after asking some advice from people, I visualized my internal editor, got a little violent, and stuffed her in a cage and put a lock on it. It sounds ridiculous, but visualization helps. It worked. I was still writing junk, mind you, but at least the thoughts were getting onto the paper. I could fix everything later like I was supposed to. It was still a little tough at the beginning because I was still uncertain about the opening, but at least I'd finally jumped into it and got the story rolling.

So do what you have to in order to shut down your internal editor so you can actually get some writing done. Write a letter, do some mental pep-talking, or be like me and just shove her in a damn box and refuse to let her out until you're good and ready for her to come back out and do her job.

Not A Writing Meme: Day 31

HAPPY

HALLOWEEN!

Writing Meme: Day 30

30. Final ques­tion! Tag some­one! And tell us what you like about that per­son as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I honestly don't have anyone to tag. And I know nothing about anyone's writing or characters. Unless some of my followers want to rock out and do a thirty-day meme. Here's a tip though: Do chunks of it so you finish in a few days. HA. Then just schedule the posts to pop up every day.

You don't actually think I sat down every day to do a post, did you? Yeah right. Like I have time for that. =P

Writing Meme: Day 29

29. How often do you think about writ­ing? Ever come across some­thing IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

HOLY F YES. In the book that’s being shopped to publishers as we speak, I killed off a guy by having him inhale spores from an alien fungus. The fungus attached itself to places inside his lungs and happily started growing. He died from asphyxiation and when they autopsied him, found all this purple fungus partying in his lungs.

I thought to myself, “Man, stuff like that in real life would suck.”

Then I watched Planet Earth. I am so glad I’m not an insect.

In the jungle somewhere lives a fungus that likes to get into the heads of insects. Literally. The spores end up in their brains and, if it can, somehow gets them to climb up high. They showed an infected ant dragging itself up a twig with its mandibles. Eventually these insects die and the fungus grows and sprouts out of their heads and bodies to continue doing what it does. Ants will carry their ill comrades far, far away to keep the entire colony from getting infected.

Writing Meme: Day 28

28. Have you ever writ­ten a char­ac­ter with phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­i­ties? Describe them, and if there’s noth­ing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.

No idea if this actually counts or not, but I guess in SF anything goes. Cutter Hayward was in, well, let’s say it was a little accident. Mangled as his body was, he had two options; go cyborg or integrate with the ship. He chose to go with the ship. So if you ever want to visit him, he’s behind Panel No. 5, hooked up more than someone in the Matrix.

Writing Meme: Day 27

27. Along sim­i­lar lines, do appear­ances play a big role in your sto­ries? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about design­ing your char­ac­ters.

I guess I'll go with yes because they're all so different. The dragon form of a Galatac will depend upon him/her, but also how many are involved during the transformation. Once you get past two, the color of the dragon will be constant. For example, Kaiton is red and gold when trouncing around as a dragon, but if he performs the transformatin with two others, then he - and they - will be white. Four and they'll be gold. Five...well I've actually forgotten what happens when they hit five since it's yet to happen, but I do remember it's something sort of bizarre. That happens when a lot of power bounces around.

Anywho, as for appearances with regular(ish) people, they are important, but when it comes to description, I only dish out enough so the reader has a general idea. They're allowed to fill in gaps. I don't detail clothing like some people do. It's boring and a waste of time. When clothing is detailed, it's for a reason.

Character design usually just pops in there like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Yeah. They'll just stroll into my brain and wave. True, they may need some tweaking, but usually they're in pretty good shape. Other times, though, I have developed characters from scratch, but that's usually when I take someone from real life and create a character for them. Some people, I've found, are more difficult than others.

Writing Meme: Day 26

26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your char­ac­ters? Do oth­ers draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite pic­ture of him!

Nope. I’ve never drawn any of my characters. One person drew one of my characters once. I think I still have it…somewhere…

What I have found though, are a few pictures that work quite nicely with things I’ve written. How about I send you to some of those? The art is amazing anyway… I friggin' love Deviant Art.

This is so ridiculously close to the incident at the end of my most recent book. The girl is a remarkable resemblance to Caroline after she was cursed. Cuts included. Yeah. She was in a bad way. Though it was a different man who would have carried her, but this guy could easily be her brother, Alex, who was nearby at the time and yes, dressed in black as well. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw this.

Yes, it's on it's side, so it's a little awkward, but that almost works considering the character. This could easily be Aether, one of my antagonists, who is truly insane. Most of my antagonists are evil and have greed and bloodlust on their minds. Aether is just way, way off the deep end.

Fihr and his mate Marianne. I use the term "mate" because Fihr (whose name is still up for debate) used to be a wolf.

At one point I have a god revive past warriors to fight an awakened evil. Jace never got a woman in his last life. This time he falls for an elf and she for him. Oh, and did I mention the god gave them wings?

Yes, Xerphin is this big. And Galatacs come pretty damn close.

Writing Meme: Day 25

25. Do any of your char­ac­ters have pets? Tell us about them.

Only one of them. Gabrielle has a dog named Piccolo. He’s a Siberian husky and based on the dog I hope to have someday. Yay!

Writing Meme: Day 24

24. How will­ing are you to kill your char­ac­ters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most inter­est­ing way you’ve killed some­one?

I will kill someone if the plot requires it to move forward, though I admit to not killing people when it would likely make the story more interesting. For example, in one story, my guys Cole and Jace ended up in a bad sitaution. For a long, long time, my plan was to kill Cole in a cave in. If it were to ever end up in an editor's hands and they said, "Kill him," I probably would (yes, I'm sorry Cole, but you're expendable. Your woman will be very sad). However, as I continued to write and flesh things out, I enjoyed him (yes, I know, kill your darlings or your babies or whatever, but he's a fun guy and it felt kind of empty to give him a girl and then wipe him out of the pages), and it works just as well with him not dying.

But that doesn't mean I'm afraid to kill main characters or anything. I kill a lot of people. Kings. Queens. Mothers. Brothers. In a few stories, I kill the main character (with good reason). So yeah, I'll kill people if I have to.

As for interesting ways I've killed people, that one's up in the air. How interesting is interesting? I mean, I have a mug here that says, "Inventing ways to kill characters is my specialty." I've suffocated a guy with alien fungus growing in his lungs (just wait till we get to day 29). I killed one poor guy with a bit of dragon inspiration (the dragon was toying with him and then had an "AHHA!" moment and did that thing where you slap your hand on the surface of something when you get that bit of inspiration. Guy = pancaked). I sort of killed a group of people using demons. I say "sort of" because the entity in charge didn't want their souls to go back to their creator (and potentially lead to more problems), so it encased their souls within their dead bodies.

Oh yeah. It's always a party in my stories. Haha.


See? Told ya.

Writing Meme: Day 23

23. How long does it usu­ally take you to com­plete an entire story—from plan­ning to writing to post­ing (if you post your work)?

I average about a year.

Writing Meme: Day 22

22. Tell us about one scene between your char­ac­ters that you’ve never writ­ten or told any­one about before! Seri­ous or not.

There’s an alternate universe where Kaiton’s people never joined with Xerphin but often took women captive after a fight with another realm (or whomever – they’re often hired out by others). They often take these women as wives. The details change from time to time on who gets Alliah (Kaiton’s wife) first, but eventually Kaiton takes her in. He’s the strong silent type to the nth degree. Never pushes, never makes her do anything she doesn’t want to. In fact, if she were to escape, he’d let her. One night he returns to home after a particularly nasty battle and she helps dress his wounds. Eventually they begin to understand one another and get together.

It’s actually much longer than one scene I guess, like a little story that plays in my mind, but it’s never gone down on paper or anything else so it counts. It would be a fun one to write though…

Writing Meme: Day 21

21. Do any of your char­ac­ters have chil­dren? How well do you write them?

Several of them have children. I write them just like any other character (so to speak). None of them are very young though so it’s not like I’m writing toddlers or something. I mean to say I don’t have any more trouble writing them than I would when dealing with another character. Each one is his or her own person so that’s how I deal with them. *shrug*

Writing Meme: Day 20

20. What are your favorite char­ac­ter inter­ac­tions to write?

Kaiton and Akira! Father and daughter, they’re too much alike so they clash a lot. The best part (and maybe this is messed up) is that Akira’s just as strong as her father and they’ve beaten the crap out of one another before. They’ve had a very odd relationship…. I enjoy writing them because as much as they fight, and as weird as this is going to sound, they really do love each other. Kaiton ultimately feels that he’s failed her mother (this whole thing is a long story…) and Akira’s never really belonged anywhere.

Let’s just say that it’s a party whenever these two show up on the page together.

Dang. I just noticed. A lot of these questions are about characters. Is there going to be something else soon?

Writing Meme: Day 19

19. Favorite minor that decided to shove him­self into the spot­light and why!

Meyers. Private Jacob Meyers. Grade A smartass with a lot of great lines. He’s the guy you’d want to hang out with at the bar once he got home from his tour overseas (or in this case, on another planet). I hated killing him, but it had to be done. Honestly, I almost didn’t do it, but knew that mattered. R.I.P. Meyers.

Writing Meme: Day 18

18. Favorite antag­o­nist and why!

Yeah Xerphin! He’s my black dragon and no, I do not give a crap how cliché that sounds. Being black actually has nothing to do with the fact that he’s evil. He just happened to be born that way. Anytime I picture him, he’s sitting at my side looking like that really dangerous Doberman you never want to mess with. That’s how I picture Xerphin and his right hand man Kaarn. My two guard dogs. Badasses.

But I love Xerphin because he’s just so damn mean and he gets so much pleasure out of it. It’s fun to write, as messed up as that sounds. There are bad guys that you utterly despise, bad guys that annoy the crap out of you, and bad guys that somehow manage to rock (like Darth Vader – he was NOT a nice person, but damn he was cool). Xerphin rocks. That’s why I was pleased that my critique group liked him (even though the piece featuring him needed serious work – and with good reason too).

Writing Meme: Day 17

17. Favorite pro­tag­o­nist and why!

Kaiton! I love that man. In a way, he’s every girl’s dream come true. Well, at least for girls who’ve always wanted a guy to change from bad to good.

Kaiton is the ultimate bad boy. A top warrior in Xerphin’s army, he saves a woman and goes traitor (he’d been thinking about it for a while anyway). But while he plots his return, he falls in love with the woman he rescued, they marry, have a baby girl...but then he loses his wife.

AWWWWW.

On his own once again, he believes it's safer for his daughter if she grows up in a normal family instead of running around with him (he's back on the revenge plot - did I mention he found out Xerphin slaughtered his people while he was gone?). From there, it's just one big party. You never know how far on the dark side he is (to borrow from Star Wars) or if he'll ever go back to the way he was with his wife. Especially after he meets his daughter again.

DUN DUN DUN!

He's simply a blast to write. His "fuck with me and I'll kill you" attitude, his dark/light see-sawing, his interactions with his daughter - everything is just so fun. And I torture that guy so much, mentally and physically. I've beaten him up, nearly killed him, and when he does die, he doesn't go to hell, but he's been such a bad boy, he's not allowed to be with his wife's spirit either. She's constantly being reincarnated, so his heaven isn't entirely heaven. You should see what his soul looks like.... *cue evil cackle*

Writing Meme: Day 16

16. Do you write roman­tic rela­tion­ships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you will­ing to go in your writ­ing? ;)

Ooooh yeah. I do enjoy a nice romance here and there. They’re almost as much fun to write as a fight scene. Everyone loves a nice bit of sexual tension from time to time. As for how “far” I’ll go, I used to give my characters their privacy, but in my last ms, well, let’s just say I went all the way.

(And on a totally different subject, I'm giving away 4 books on my Bookseller Recommends blog!)

Writing Meme: Day 15

15. Mid­way ques­tion! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether pro­fes­sional or not!

There are a lot of them. There is no one writer I admire the most because they’re all out there, working hard, and putting their work into print while I sit here and pull my hair out and...yeah. So I'll name a few authors and say why I admire them and their work.

Karen Marie Moning - Her great stories and her dedication to her fan base. Even if she doesn't always personally answer some of her fanmail, you will get a response from someone that's not a form letter. I hope to have a fun following like that someday.

Janet Evanovich - Because she has to put up with people damanding books year after year since they don't realize it takes a while to actually craft the book to make it decent and then all the production stuff that goes after it, so she's probably been doing books in six months or so, which is why people have no reason to bitch when they don't like the story. You hear that, Stephanie Plum fans? You want a better story and better writing, quit bitching about how long it takes to get the next story. Janet also gets ponits because of the number of books with the same characters in them. I honestly don't know if I could come up with 18 books featuring the same people. It's no wonder she crafted a story revolving around Diesel...

J.R.R. Tolkien - Not just world building; universe building.

L.J. Smith - Description powerhouse. I'm pleased to say I sold another copy of The Forbidden Game a few days ago.

Pretty much any author who manages to land an agent and get their book into print. That itself is a feat.