Blair MacGregor's Blog, page 21

The Friday Night NaNo Update

If I’d planned to keep a steady word count from the alpha and omega of November, I would be woefully behind and ready to redline on the stress meter. Fortunately, I am old enough to have looked at my commitments–on top of the usual, at least one member of my out-of-town family was here for the first six days of the month–and expect myself to do little more than get the ball rolling. I did have an afternoon of angst when the little time I’d actually set aside to write was accompanied by consta...

Crossroads Finally Makes Sense

Many years ago, I was able to attend the Writers of the Future writing workshop in Los Angeles, taught by K.D. Wentworth and Tim Powers. K.D. gave me a piece of short story writing advice: Mutilate the cows on the first page. For me, who had a bad habit of burying the SF element too many words into the story, it was an excellent piece of advice.

But it was Tim whom I got to know quite well during that week, and I had the chance to spend much of a later convention hanging out with him and his w...

Decision Made

So I’m waiting for my parents to arrive, and hoping they either beat the line of icky storms or choose to hang out at a coffee shop until it passes.

In the meantime, I’m tinkering with the NaNo project. I’ve decided to focus on the urban fantasy–Crossroads of America–because I (a) have the research at my fingertips, and (b) grew more excited the more I thought about it.

I love the characters. There’s Jacqueline, who prefers to go by Jack–an early-thirties Californian geocaching her way across t...

Taking the Hit

In training for sparring and self-defense, we learn techniques and redundancies to avoid being hit.

In living real life—the work, the play, the relationships, the expectations—emotional hits can’t be avoided.

I had big plans on many fronts for this year. I’m an ambitious and enthusiastic person, and it seemed many things were falling into place. Prospects were rich. Opportunities were within reach. Time was available, energy was high, and all things seemed possible.

Then came the spring, and the...

NaNoWriMo

And I have signed up. It’ll be my first time.

Now to choose the project.

The contemporary romance novel? The upside is the idea barreled into my thoughts, nicely formed. The downside is I’ve never written romance before, and I must keep reminding myself that—unlike my previous projects—the fate of the world/country/etc. need not hang in the balance for there to be tension. When writing the outline, I kept trying to drop in fantastical or paranormal elements, but none of them worked. And again–I...

Links o’ Miscellany and MHO On Them

First: I am in love with this article by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown. As I mentioned in comments at Sherwood’s LJ, a female character cannot be confident, competent, and likeable without being deemed a Mary Sue. (That doesn’t even touch upon appearance, which is a whole ‘nother target of spite and vitriol.) I remember a beta reader once telling me a character was a Mary Sue because of those three factors. It didn’t matter that the character had been show to earn those traits; the t...

Worldbuilding Through Writing

Remember when I mentioned my worldbuilding process, and my penchant for making major worldbuilding changes when needed? How worldbuilding with charts and diagrams and questionnaires didn’t work for me?

Over at Book View Café, Katherine Kerr discusses Sagas, Series, and Just Plain Long Books. About halfway through the entry, I found this wonderful gem:

“Now, some people, more sensible than I am, would have sat down with a couple of notebooks and rationally figured out the answers to all these qu...

Reading Redemption

Based on a recco from Sherwood Smith at the beginning of September, I picked up Lindsay Buroker’s The Emperor’s Edge. Today, I purchased the sixth book in the series, and should likely just pick up the seventh now so I’m not left without it should my Kindle be beyond internet reach when I finish Book 6. (Click! Done.)

Why, yes, I have enjoyed these books immensely.

I’m not alone in my liking. The series has been quite successful. So much so that I also invested some time reading the author’s bl...

Full-time Person, Part-time Writer

This is what it looks like when my pups decide I’ve been writing–and thus not paying attention to them–for too long. They aren’t the only creatures in this world to hold such opinions from time to time, but they are the only ones permitted to express itby shoving their noses in my face and panting in my ear.

The last three weeks have been productive on the writing front, though more on the non-fiction side of my projects. (For information on those, check out Wellness for Real Life.) But this l...

Reviewing Reviews

After hanging around writers in various states of publish for the last twenty-plus years, you’d think I’d have internalized the “Don’t read your reviews!” advice.

After hanging around me for not too long, you’d see I can be quietly and subversively hardheaded about certain pieces of advice.

I do indeed read my reviews (a simple process these days, since I don’t get that many). And I consider what they mean, individually and collectively, about how I’ve connected with readers.

That phrase—connect...