Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 300

More on Fantasy

I may have taken on a bit much with the idea of trying to create an essential fantasy reading list. There are a lot of books to consider, and everyone has a different idea of what counts as "essential." There are also a lot of different opinions about what constitutes "fantasy." My main aim was to come up with the books/authors that I, as a fantasy novelist, should have some familiarity with so I don't feel stupid on con panels, but I do also think it's important to know the "classics" of what c

Essential Fantasy Reading

I didn't do quite as much yesterday, as I expected, but I still passed my goal for the day. I'll have to do some reworking of what I wrote because there was some thinking on paper, and I didn't realize until I'd written it all out that it probably would happen in a slightly different way and would be more interesting that way. There won't be much deleting, just a lot of moving things around. I can deal with that.

I'm not sure if it will help or hurt that something is happening now that is my equi

From the Department of Bad Ideas

I'm still on a roll, with more than 5,000 words written yesterday. I may have lower productivity today, since I have choir practice tonight and something to write for the medical school today. But still, I'm starting to feel like a diligent professional instead of a slacker. It does help that I've reached the part where I really know what I'm doing, the part the rest of the book was aiming toward.

There's been a lot of news out there lately that has to have come from the Department of Bad Ideas.

Plot vs. Story

Pardon me while I do a victory dance. I wrote nearly 6,000 words yesterday. I'm excited about today because I'm coming up on a huge scene I've been imagining for a couple of years. I want to do it justice, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm also eager to see it come to life. The chance to write this scene alone is making me glad I decided to go ahead and write this whole book. It's nice to be at a place in your career when publishers are willing to look at just a proposal instead of the whole book

All Fired Up

I think I got motivated by those writing sessions at A-Kon because I'm up and at 'em relatively early today, considering that I've already been to the library (I timed my visit to coincide with the toddler story hour, rather than immediately after the toddler story hour, when the library is swarmed by toddlers). Now all my errands for the day are done and I can focus on work. I felt like such a slacker when hearing about the work schedules of some of the long-time and big-name people on those pa

The Ballet Murder Magic Club

This is going to be a combined Thursday/Friday post since I took much of today off. It's my dad's birthday, so I met my parents in a town east of the metro area for lunch. There's a restaurant there that's an offshoot of a restaurant that used to be in my hometown that was our favorite restaurant, but then the owner retired and sold it, and it was never the same. We thought it would be fun to check out the branch, and it was just like the old one. Even better, the former owner of the original ha

Beginnings

I love it when I surprise myself. I had a really fun idea for a scene pop into my head yesterday, in a book I thought I had thoroughly outlined. Now I can cut some boring scenes and sum up their information. Yay! Plus, I have slightly shorter hair that now has no grey in it. It's also a little redder, which wasn't my plan, but I like it. My hairstylist seems to have decided that since I have green eyes, my hair should be redder.

Here's another reader request writing topic. Previously, I talked ab

The Not-Holiday Holiday

I pretty much had a not-holiday holiday weekend that still somehow felt like a holiday. I did a lot of work, but I broke with my routine, and sometimes changing routines is enough to get the benefits of a break. The main thing I did was stay mostly offline. I took the laptop downstairs Friday afternoon to work while sitting on the sofa and didn't take it back upstairs until Monday morning. That had a cumulative effect on productivity -- if I wasn't sending e-mails or making blog or message board

Killer Robots from the Future

Yes, it's another Friday morning of pain and whimpering -- well, not really outright pain, but my thighs got a good workout last night in ballet class, so they now have this odd trembly feeling. I may take a walk today to see if I can loosen them up, or that might just make matters worse.

Meanwhile, I seem to keep making progress by cutting words, but have now reached a scene that will require additions to make it have something to do with the plot, so the word count should go up again. It's goin

Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Melissa Walker

I managed to lose more than 2,000 words while still making lots of progress, so I think yesterday came out ahead, in a sense. Just remember, thinking is your friend. And I got what I think is a potentially brilliant story idea last night that I will have to let the subconscious creative squirrel play with while I finish the current project.

In the meantime, I've got another Girlfriends Cyber Circuit guest, Melissa Walker, author of Lovestruck Summer. Quinn is an indie rock girl who came out to Au