Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 280

Character Flaws

I must have been on fire yesterday because I wrote more than 6,000 words, and I didn't even spend that much time on it. I guess it was because I was at a part where I knew what would happen and had imagined the scene quite a bit. I think it still needs work, but the work is in the "I'll deal with it in revisions" category rather than in the "I have to get it right and figure it out before I can move on" category. I can see the end from here, though I'm not quite sure what happens next.

Now for...

Book Report: Book Worlds Colliding

After spending yesterday avoiding going out, I got up early this morning and have already been to the scary place on the other side of the front door to do all my errands -- office supplies (and wow, but they just totally remodeled the Office Depot so that it's even more of a toy store for writers), a Target run, renewed my car registration and got groceries. I am so very together today.

I haven't been reading as much while I've been writing (it took me two weeks to read one book), but I do h...

Collaborating with Myself

So, this weekend I was writing along, minding my own business (as well as the business of a number of imaginary people) when out of the blue, a scene hit me. I thought I had all the scenes until the end of the book planned, and I hadn't planned this one. It was just one of my rare sadistic moments when a nasty little thought came up from the depths of my subconscious -- it's like that weird impulse people who are afraid of heights sometimes get when they're in a high place, with that freaky l...

Friday Stuff

I really got back in the groove yesterday. I was rewriting a scene by putting it into a new document (somehow, that makes me feel less like I'm trashing what I already wrote), and then when I pasted it into the manuscript and replaced the old version of the scene, it turned out that I was about 3,000 words ahead of where I'd been. Meanwhile, I cut a huge chunk that didn't get incorporated into the new scene, so I must have written even more than that. I need to review the new scene in context...

Subconscious Shenanigans

I had another one of those days when my subconscious outwitted me. I've been struggling with a scene that I wrote one way, then realized it was all wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I'd keep working on it, only to hit a wall at the same point. Yesterday, I was working on it and I actually fell asleep, right there with the computer on my lap desk. It wasn't deep sleep, just enough to be sort of daydreaming, and in that daydream I figured out what the end of the scene should reall...

The James Cameron School of Writing

Alas, my "ruling the Internet" powers were not as strong as I hoped, and my friend didn't win the baldness contest. I suppose I can count this as a trial run on that Ongoing Plan for World Domination, which means I may need to go back to the drawing board. And maybe recruit more minions.

Just catching part of Aliens on TV Sunday got that story stuck in my brain, and it's had me pondering quite a bit. I may be one of the few people in the world who hasn't yet seen Avatar, which is odd because I...

Now the Week Begins

First, if you haven't yet voted for my friend Jimmy in the March Baldness competition, they changed the link, so I think this one should be working now (I just checked it). Come on, Army of Minions, vote Jimmy in Arlington! (And, gee, if I can't get people to click on an Internet link, how can the publishers think I can get people to buy books?)

I was feeling down on myself for not getting much work done yesterday, but then I remembered that I'd worked all weekend, and it was all very intense ...

Movie Monday

We celebrated the first day of spring here in north Texas with snow. Yes, more snow. And it's interesting how we always seem to get our snow on weekends when I've committed to do something that requires leaving the house. Nearly 90 percent of the year, weather isn't an issue for me because I don't have to go anywhere, but we seem to have bad weather on the few days when I really have to go somewhere. This time, it was a writing seminar, and I think I'm having trouble recovering because it was...

Still More TV Laws

I'm going to have to do some revision on what I wrote yesterday because I had a scene go in an unexpected direction. A character I introduced in the scene turned out to be something very different -- and more interesting -- than I imagined, and that then created a better set-up for a later event in the book, and I was really excited about this. And then after I finished the scene, I realized I'd been so excited about all these developments that I'd kind of forgotten about the original reason ...

Pantry Purging and Kitchen Creativity

I have discovered that raising the pillow level relieves the pressure on the sore shoulder, so this morning's mission was to buy a new pillow (my old one had squashed into flatness). It's actually feeling a lot better, so I think that avoiding heavy lifting is helping. I never thought that the Miss Piggy diet -- never eat anything you can't lift -- would do me much good, but I got a twinge from lifting a bag of M&Ms with the wrong hand, so maybe there's something to it.

Speaking of diet, I've ...