Carrie Baize's Blog, page 13

Yes, It’s Tuesday

It’s Tuesday, and as I said I’d try to post regularly, I’m sitting here trying to write.

Unfortunately, this is something of a non-entry in relation to the others I’ve posted recently.

I am still trying to recover from the tragedy that unfolded in the Washington Navy Yard yesterday.

To my knowledge, it did not directly touch my life. That is to say that none of the Naval personnel who are part of my immediate circle are among the fallen. In spite of that, I have a deep love for the men and women...

Hey, I Know That Guy

When it comes to building characters, there are probably as many different methods as there are authors. The desire to base them on people you know can be strong, but there’s a fine line between using someone as an inspiration and just changing their name and dropping them into your plot.

Some of my characters are pretty blatantly based on people I know… sort of.

The members of the Rio Crew are prime examples of this.

If you’ve read my bio (or gasp know me in real life), you know I’m a gamer. I...

Happy author, working author, purr purr purr

I stumbled on a blog post the other day by Books & Such agent Rachelle Gardner titled 11 Things Happy Authors Don’t Do

Of those 11 things, I manage 10 of them on a regular basis (and all 11 when all my characters & plots are playing nicely with the rest of my brain). Not bad, if I do say so myself… and I just, well, did.

Please take a few minutes to read Ms. Gardner’s blog entry… I’ll wait.

~ ~ ~

You’re back! Cool! Now that you’re familiar with Ms. Gardner’s take on it, I’m going to go ahead and...

Colors May Run (Twitter Strikes Again)

As I was lurking around the Twittersphere, this little gem popped up:

Now, at this point, I could say all done. This quote speaks for itself. Wow – quick blog entry!

But, I won’t… simply because some of you might be interested in the eruption of stuff this quote caused in my head.

In case you’re having problems with the image, the quote is this:

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

~Honoré de Balzac

Bleed like colors? What?

Even if you h...

The Strong Box

I read an interesting piece by Sophia McDoughall about Strong Female Characters recently, and it got me thinking…

She has an interesting take on things – basically (as I understand it) that SFCs are smashed into a certain limiting stereotype while male characters don’t normally get hit with the same narrow view of what makes a character strong.

Honestly, it’s not something I’d ever considered. Well, not in that context, anyway.

Most of my characters (the main characters, anyway) tend to be stron...

Finding Time

Because life is bordering on completely insane, I really struggled to come up with today’s entry.

There are just too many things taking up too much of my brain right now.

So, I had two choices:

1) Blow off this week and hope things settle down enough to come up with something cool for next week…

or

2) Just write something to you, my readers, with the hope that it turns into something worth reading.

Even though I’m not entirely sure it’s going to beworth reading when I’m done, I chose option 2.

First...

Well… That’s That.

I did manage to finish my July project… sort of.

The story was told before the end of the day on the 31st. Half a victory, I guess. Even after going back and trying to squeeze in some more details and dialogue that got glossed over in the first rush, the work still came up 13,224 words short of my goal.

Heavy sigh. Sympathetic “awww” soundclip.

Honestly, it’s more of a let-down than I thought it would be. And for all my just do it cheerleading over the past couple weeks, I actually found myself...

A Day Late And 14.5K Short

14,524 to be exact.

That’s how far I am from my word count goal. The story’s been told, though, so I guess it’s time to go back and expand some things and add some more details while I try to keep it readable.

But, with the “real job” sucking up most of the day and other responsibilities eating into the evening, it’s a pretty safe bet I’m not going to hit that magic number by midnight.

What happens when you miss those goals? What happens when, no matter what you do or did, you just don’t hit the...

Landslides, Drama & Other Barriers

As of the end of today, I should have just over 37K words in my current WIP…

I’m… uh… not there.

In fact, I’m almost 10K short.

I want to write, mind you.

The story is there… happening… screaming to be told… but it won’t quite make its way to my fingers.

There are many reasons (actually valid ones, even) that the book’s not making its way from my brain to my word processor, but there’s one beautifully accurate technical term that covers them all (and then some)…

Writer’s Block

When most people (incl...

Bonus & Completely Unrelated Post

There’s a You Know You Grew Up In Fresno When… group on facebook.

Usually, it’s filled with light-hearted stories of youthful adventures, impromptu reunions, many posts that begin with Does anyone remember…, and – quite honestly – a whole lot of fun.

But you know how there’s always that one person that jumps in and rains on everyone’s parade. You know the one. The one that hates everything and everybody and then gets butthurt when you call them out for being a jackass.

Well, that one person show...