It's the Little Things

Writers get asked about inspiration all the time. Where did the idea for the story come from? What inspires you? I think the questions bother some authors, but usually those are the easiest ones for me to answer since I tend to be able to pinpoint the birth of all of my stories.

Every once in a while though, the inspiration is such a small thing that it's hard to explain. For instance, my trip to Scotland and London last week. In part, the trip was research-based. I want to write a story set somewhere else, and when the opportunity came to head to Britain, I jumped at it. The thing is instead of some sweeping a-ha moment of brilliance, I got little bits and pieces of inspiration from a lot of different places.

There is the barred over window in the secret room at Glamis Castle...


...and the haunted squatters' tunnels under Edinburgh...


...and the caged graves in the cemetery around Greyfriar's Kirk...


...and the ruins of Dunnottar Castle...


...and the mists that float like living things through the valleys...


...and then there's the dragon ;-)

I'm not sure which of these things will stick to make a story or if somehow I'll be able to work them all into something really epic. One way or another though, there's a story here and it will be written. Because there's a thing about Scotland. Even with the rain and the dreariness, it sinks under your skin and touches your soul. It's a magical place and, if you're lucky, when you leave you get to take a little piece of the magic with you.

Summer Trips, Summer Movies

As many of you know, I'm in Scotland with a couple girlfriends this week. But I hate when I don't leave a blog post, so in case you're looking for something to do, may I suggest the following movie? I'm missing the opening, but I plan to see it when I get home! Plus, I might be working on a superhero story soon, so I've got men in tights and capes on the brain ;-)



Just curious. How is your favorite superhero? And what super-power would you want if you could have one?

Budget? I Don't Need No Stinking Budget.

Yeah, turns out I actually needed a better one.

For those of you who don't already know, I had to back out of Authors After Dark for this year. This was a very hard decision, and I tried to find a way to make it work, but the point came where I had to let people know so they could fill my slots. I'm very upset about this both because I feel like i let people down and because, damn it, there were a lot of people going that I really wanted to meet or see again.

The problem is, when you have a travel budget and you stretch it, that doesn't leave a lot of room for contingencies. Since my writing is not making me huge bank yet, I had to rely on my wonderful, supportive husband to front all of my travel costs. He gave me a dollar figure and said "Do what you want." (Because he's awesome like that.)

And there should have been plenty there for everything. I knew RT would be a pricey trip (and LA is a pricey town), so I actually budgeted in a little extra for that, hoping I'd have some left over. Sadly, it did all get used up. No worries though, because I still had enough for the other two trips on my agenda. I booked my flight to Scotland (which ended up about the same price as my flight to LA when all was said and done) and--Yay!--staying with a friend there, so really the flight is the only major expense for that trip. I'd already paid my fees for AAD, and it looked like we would have frequent flyer miles for the flight so it was basically paid for too. In budget with a little spending money too!

And then...it wasn't. We didn't have enough miles for the flight, and then other rocks came tumbling down where it was going to be more money (and not a little more...a lot more). I could have wiggled the flight into the budget, but not the rest (the flight was less than half of the unexpected cost). When it all came down to it, what I'd budgeted as the least expensive trip only needed one more thing to go wrong and it would be the most expensive. All of the creative math in the world couldn't make up the difference.

So last week, I sent letters to the people most affected to let them know I wouldn't be there. I want to be very clear that this decision is not a negative about Authors After Dark. I've heard nothing but great things about it as a con and had really been looking forward to attending. It's entirely my own fault for not planning for all the contingencies that I could foresee. I didn't, and several of them bit me in the ass.

To the people I was supposed to work with: I'm sorry for leaving you one woman down.

To those I was supposed to meet and hang out with: I suck, I know :( Hopefully the next con.

To Stella: Thanks for your understanding, and I hope I didn't screw up panels and such too much.

To everyone else (hell, to everyone): A piece of advice...plan for things to go wrong when you're budgeting. Lots of things. That way  you don't run into this mess, and if everything goes right, you have extra spending money (which is always handy).

Me-yow...

Cougar.

Love the cat, and to be honest, I don't hate it as a slang term either.

A couple places I frequent on the interwebs have been discussing cougars of late. Why the sudden surge of interest? I'm not sure. Maybe it's cyclical and I've just missed the cycles until now LOL. Really though, it's led me to do a lot of thinking. The first time it popped on my radar was with regard to romance books, and specifically erotic romance. Are cougars hot or overdone? How much of an age difference until it moves from sexy to squicky? Etc. etc. etc. And then, the terminology came into question. If you're not in your 40s, you aren't a cougar. (In your 30s, you're apparently a puma. Not sure what this means for women in their 50s or older.) Then someone said that if you weren't a woman who actively hunted for younger men, you weren't a cougar either. (Okay, so in a way, this makes sense, but then is there a different term for women who just happen to sometimes date or end up falling for a younger guy?)

All of this led me to a couple questions of my own.

First, there's a name for women who do this, but what about men? I mean, sure some of them get the dirty old man title, but in general do they have a name? Because if they do, I can't think of it.

Which leads me to wonder why women have one, and why we're always such sticklers for fitting people into niches. Because it isn't just the cougar thing and different people's ideas about that. Here are some other things you'll regularly hear from women about other women (and from men too, but...)

- "You're not curvy, you're fat."

- "She's too pretty to be smart."

- "That chick is too old to wear that."

- "Someone give that girl a cookie, she must be anorexic."

I will admit, I'm guilty of this as well, but when we talk about feminism and women supporting women, we need to start being realistic. Women are hard on each other to a crazy degree.

A few weeks ago, a woman started bitching about #BoobieWed on Twitter. Now, this is a campaign where people switch their avatars (if they choose) to a picture of boobs or cleavage and remind people to do their self-exams. It is for breast cancer awareness. Does it raise money? No. But it does get the message out that self-checks are important. My sister found her cancer through a self-exam and has been a survivor for ten years now. But this woman was adamant that it was about sex.

Who.

Gives.

A.

Rat's.

Ass?

If some jerk wants to look at my boobs on Wednesdays because he or she likes boobs--whatever. That doesn't matter to me. What does is the one chick who says seeing my cleavage reminded her to do a self-exam. Flashing my cleavage (which I do a lot anyway) is a price I'm totally willing to pay if it might save a life.

And who is that chick to judge me for it?

So, here's my question to all the cougars, pumas, kitties, whatever furry animal you associate yourself with (or even if you don't)--why do we do this to each other? Why all the judgments and rudeness?

Just a Thousand More Words Please

Word counts are the bane of many writers. Your first novel is over 100k? You might want to look at some trimming. Under 70k? Only if you're writing middle grade or younger. There are guidelines all over the internet on what constitutes a good word count for just about any genre of fiction. That's not what this post is about though.

One of the greatest things about digital publishing is beyond the "are you insane, even Tolkien was smart enough to make three books!" word counts, digital publishers are embracing all kinds of lengths. In fact, the first piece I had published was Of Course I Try at barely over 5k. Over the course of the next seven months, I released one around 10k, another between 15 and 20k, another at about 33k, and my YA which clocked in at just about 86k. I loved every one of those projects.

Right now, however, I'm working on a contest entry and realized that I've grown so used to the "any word count is a good word count" mentality that I really had a hard time with the 5-7k word limit. Like...really hard time. The first story I started for the contest is already well over that count and isn't close to being done (BTW, TriggerHappy won for band name for that particular story, tentatively titled GunShy). So, I set it aside and tried again. At first I wondered if I could possibly make this new story stretch to 5k. I just didn't think there was enough there (of course it doesn't help matters that it's a brand new genre for me, so a lot of guessing and O.o was involved in the writing). Then, once I crossed 5k, I had an "oh shit, I only have 2000 words left to play with" moment.

I finished it, and it's within the word count requirements. I'm really not sure if the ending was rushed though. I have less than 200 words to play with to make it the best it can be and that scares the crap out of me.

The funny part in all this is I used to do writing challenges with 1000 or 2000 word total limits all the time. Meeting 5-7k should be a breeze. But it's not. Not if you're out of practice at least. So, I'm sitting here tonight, dreading the feedback I'm going to get from my betas. I want them to be hard on me because I want it to be good...but I don't want it to suck because I don't have it in me to make another attempt at this by the deadline.

Oh yeah...there's a deadline. What the hell was I thinking? Oh, I remember. It was an excuse, just like those old challenges, to try something new and push myself out of my comfort zone. Yeah. I think I left that behind well over 7k words ago.

So what about you? What word counts do you write in and do you find it hard to switch it up? Or do limits make you happy since you know exactly what you have to work with and how close you are to done?

Name That Band!

First and foremost, I'm starting a new feature on Mondays. Sometimes it'll be more in depth than others, so please stop by and check it out (Hint: ManCandy).

Anyway, the heroine of Badlands 2 is being obstinate about telling me her tale, so I took a short break to work on (appropriately enough) a short story. It's going pretty well, but the hero is a member of a rock band and I need to give the band a name. Bantering around on FB and Twitter has gotten me several suggestions, but I can't decide. So, I decided to have a nice little poll here. I'm going to list the options that I liked for the band name, and I want you to vote on your favorite. Easy-peasy! (If it helps, think of the band as kind of Shinedown-like in nature. If you don't know them, I'll even provide you a video to help give you a feel of the kind of music they play.)

Band name options are:

Poets & Pornstars (Added after 3 votes and Psynde telling me not to skip it :P)
Taboo Coalition
Targets and Taboos (TnT)
Targets and Triggers (TnT)
Triggerhappy

Just mention your favorite in your comment, and thanks for voting :)

Asking for a Little Help for Badlands, Diabetes, and the South

Today's blog post has a three-fold purpose. I'm here to talk about Badlands 2 and the Brenda Novak Auction for diabetes research and the Help Write Now campaign. Basically, what today boils down to is me asking for your help in a variety of ways.

We'll start with the one that is on my mind right now. I've started work on Badlands 2--Henri's story--for Carina Press, but right now that is the title, and it kind of sucks. So, yeah, I'm begging for title help here. Now those of you who've read Badlands (and if you haven't you should...or you should maybe skip this paragraph, but I'd rather you read the book), know Henrietta. She's a scientist with an attitude, but you also know how Badlands ended. She hasn't lost her fire, but that's kind of messed with her a bit. She's trying to deal with the mess left behind by her father and becomes the unwitting pawn in a game between the United States government and the New York mafia...and somewhere in there, she might just stumble on love, if she lets herself. Contrary to what it sounds like, much of this novella will take place in the Badlands (I have plans for a few scenes that are just Henri and Ever). So...anyone have any brilliant title ideas? (Or series title ideas for that matter?)

Now...onto my more philanthropic requests:

A while back, a bunch of Carina Press authors got together (led by the wonderful Julie Rowe) to donate to the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes Research. There's a loaded Kindle and a loaded Nook on our auction page as well as an RWA lunch, a mentoring package, and a bunch of critiques (including one from me). We're off in our own little section, so some people are missing the opportunity to bid on crits there. In addition to the Carina Press section, there are a TON of fabulous offerings in the auction. Please, take the time to look around the auction site and see if there's anything there you might want to bid on.

In addition to my critique donation there, I've also donated one to the Help Write Now campaign to benefit southern storm relief. My critique is not up yet (I'm not sure when it will go live as they are doing 14-15 items per day), but again, there are a lot of great donations there. Please check it out, and when I do show up, please bid! LOL