Asrai Devin's Blog, page 8

Writing outside my comfort zone

I tend to write characters who are similar to myself. At least the heroines are. Low maintainance, down to earth, a person you could talk to anywhere.

I’m writing the fifth incarnation of Doug Black’s little sister. My last draft she was a bit of a princess, and the feedback was “make her a full out princess.”

I am going to struggle here, because the character I need to write is going to make me want to stab her with a pen. Or a rusty fork. I mean she’ll have a nice arc where she becomes likeable, and I love my hero who is going to go through hell with this woman.

I need to write this out there and I want someone to poke me every once in a while and keep me accountable on keeping the character to the plan.

Have you written a character that is outside you comfort zone? How did you handle it? How about reading characters that aren’t entirely likeable? Especially as a major character?

Tagged: Asrai Devin, character development, plotting, Writers Resources, writing, Writing Exercises

Thank goodness for spell check

So every time I type because it comes out ‘because’ unless I’m deliberately trying to mistype it of course.

I don’t know when it started. I suppose I could go check my old internet blogs and website, and I’m so not telling where those are. I was 18 … I’m 30 now. Yeah nuff said. And you’ll never find it. And if you do I will deny it was me.

All I really have to say is thank you for in-browser spell check. I now get those wiggly red lines under all my misspellings and can correct myself before I hit the submit button and forever embarrass myself.

My daughter just finished 4th grade. She was tested last year at a 8th grade level for spelling. They didn’t do this here (she was tested for reading speed and she reads like triple what she should be at with a 90% comprehension for silent reading, and double for reading aloud). Anyway, she spells better than me with spell check. If she hadn’t been so nervous at her spelling bee she would have gotten higher than 6th out of the entire school.

So anyway, spell check is a necessity in my writing life. Or my life in general. I was looking at my WIP and I had to turn off the spell check so those wiggly red lines wouldn’t glare at me. My fingers go faster than my brain so it looks like a fucking landmine hit my draft. Misplaced final consonants and transposed vowels. It’s first draft, if I stop and fix all my typing and spelling I will have no words left on my backspace button from overuse. Also they love to yell at me for being passive.

I am waiting on my final edits, yay, to be returned then I will do formatting for my latest Up In Flames series, tentatively called “Loving Again”. I have a theme going here with single parents, should I keep going on it? I should have a cover for everyone who has asked about my next novel.

I’m going to shoot for after the weekend, but no promises, I’m on a new babysitting venture a few days a week, and I have to have my niece over before they leave on holidays, otherwise her life will be in ruins because she didn’t see her favorite person on the planet, my son. (She is 12 and has Down Syndrome and she loves babies more than anything, and my son, who isn’t exactly a baby, in particular).

It’s long weekend in Canada? What are your plans?

Related articles

Auto-Correct Is Not Ruining Spelling (theatlanticwire.com)



Tagged: Asrai Devin, auto correct, becuase, Spell checker, Spelling, Spelling and Grammar, Up in flames series, Writers Resources

Canning vs Caning and it’s need to said

Okay, at least once a day someone finds my blog searching “canning in 50 Shades of Grey”. And every time I snort a little drink onto my keyboard.

I only blogged about 50 Shades twice and I haven’t even read the book.

But this needs to be said.

Canning is the process by which you preserve food in jars by boiling the fuck out of them and they the metal lids are vacuumed sealed to the jar. This did not occur at anytime during 50 Shades of Grey. I don’t think Ana and Christian are into food preserves.

Caning which is the act of beating someone with a stick or  cane, usually doing during a S&M scene. I imagine it hurts like hell, but as my husband is not into dealing out pain to me, I don’t know how much it actually hurts.

If you read 50 Shades and have to my website to learn this tidbit of information, can you answer me  a question? Has E.L James misspelled caning in her book?

Tagged: 50 Shades of Gray caning, 50 Shades of Grey, Asrai Devin, BDSM, caning, Canning, Canning and Freezing, canning vs caning, Food in Jars, Fruit preserves, Shades, there is no canning in 50 shades of grey

Bouncing back from burn out

I’ve been feeling pretty tense latley about a lot of things. My inability to stick with a project for more than a few chapters. My bank statments. The edits on my newest book and also thinking about getting the previous ones done up properly. And having a two year old and a nine year old is exhausting. More so on the two year old side.

Plus I feel like we just moved and it’s been nearly a year!!

I was journalling and I wrote:

I am consantly spinning my wheels, doing busy work. I’ve lost my joy these past few months. I’m always trying to get ahead, to survive. Thereis no joy. I run around trying to keep everyone else happy and I indulge in escapsist crap trying to survive. No more escaping. More joy, more things that fill my Spirit.

I was pretty depressed when I started writing. But then i decided to do something about the lack of joy. I wrote down a bunch of things that sounded interesting to me. Things I was going to start doing more frequently and things I was going to stop doing.

I decided one thing, one day or week or hour at a time. So I’m going to make it a series. Dealing with burnout and my attempts to cope and eventually get my creative mojo back.

One thing,

one day at a time.

Tagged: Asrai Devin, burn out, crafts, creative refuel, exhaustion, mommy burn out, Recreation

OMG: PIG!!

Once upon a time i lived in a little farming community. Before the oilfield got big the only place to gain a full time job was the pig barn. Where I would meet my future husband.

Oh yes. He worked in breeding. I delivered and cared for the babies and mommies and then separated them probably way too early. It was actually horrible eleven years later.

If I had a scanner I’d add some pig pictures here from the barn as there were some really cute piglets. It really depended on the semen we had and once for about 2 or 3 rooms (we had 12 rooms and 24 pigs per room or something like that) we had the cutest piglets. One that was like an oreo, black on both ends and pink the middle. There are more stories, but I won’t bore you because we need to get on the with the pig video.

Anyway.

If this doesn’t make you go AWWW, you might want to check for a heartbeat.

Any usual workplace stories out there? Anyone a pig fan? Any requests for more pig barn stories? Yeah I know I was stretching with that last question.

Tagged: Agriculture and Forestry, Asrai Devin, Barn, cute animals, Friday Fun, Pig, pig farm, piglets, pigs, Recreation

Headhopping is dumbing down

I’ve been pondering “headhopping” or changing viewpoints right in the middle of action and then back, for a little while. It came up on a writer’s list I subscribe to.

When I was learning writing the rule was “NEVER headhop.” I searched “Can headhopping work?” and found out that the prevailing advice is still “No, it’s too confusing.”

At the same time we are urged not to treat readers as if they need their hands held and everything explained to them.

I think it’s a rule writer’s might need to rethink.

The conversation on the writer’s group got me thinking, but a story I am completely obsessed with introduced me to the idea. I talked about the last two Mondays by this point. The viewpoint sometimes switches to another character and then back again.

It didn’t confuse me at all. It startled me at first, because it’s not the usual way stories are written. For me it enhanced the story. I got a flood of emotions in every scene, from all sides.

I’m going to play around with the idea  little bit, maybe write some short stories with some hopping instead of sticking to one character. Just see what comes of it.

What do you think of the rule to stick to one view point? Is it a rule that is not to be broken ever in your opinion? OR do you think it can be done?

Or maybe you don’t follow any rules. Come on rebels, confess.

Tagged: Asrai Devin, character, headhopping, multiple viewpoints, Online Writing, point of view, Short story, viewpoint, Writer, Writers Resources, writing, writing rules

Fifty Shades of Gray is an old school romance!

Okay, so I wrote about Jennifer Armintrout’s HILARIOUS (well formerly hilarious, as she keeps finding the parallels between Christian Gray and general abusive, controlling men the book makes me sadder) blog recaps of Fifty Shades of Grey. And the book is so prevalent, it’s popping up everywhere. EVERY other woman tells me she’s reading it or plans to read it and these are people who have told me “I don’t read romance novels.” ANd I clue them in to the Twilight link and they are like “oh.”

I was searching for other erotic romance to suggest to these people, because erotic romance has been around for ages and tons of it is better than FSoG. But I didn’t want to give them suggestions where there were there are threesomes or werewolves, because the people that are reading it are not those type of people. And I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head because when I’m writing fiction I stick to reading non-fiction.

I stumbled upon the RT book review forums and found this quote:

I’ve become a very picky reader and I’m always looking for romances that interest me unfortunately I don’t see many romances featuring wealthy über alpha edgy imperfect heroes and average inexperienced shy heroines these days.

Which reminded me of when Sarah Wendall was on Read it or Weep, talking about old school romances and Twilight. She says that the hero was über alpha (and rich powerfyl men) and the heroine was a twenty year old virgin. And he takes over her life, completely absorbs her.

This is Fifty Shades of Grey. It is a 1970′s romance novel!! Christian is the alpha male who controls every aspect of Ana, his woman. And she has her sexual awakening through  him, because before him she’s never had a sexual feeling in her life, which was an aspect of the older romances, because women were not seen as sexual beings and the readers didn’t like a woman in charge of her own sexuality.

Here is Sarah Wendall (of Smart Bitches, Trashy Novels) on Read it or Weep:

Characters names have changed. What women want in a romance novel has not. Only now, it’s becoming cool to admit that you are reading romance in public. On Facebook. Everywhere.

And I’m glad that erotic romance is getting good publicity. I just … wish it were with my books.LOL Just kidding.

The best thing was this quote, which actually started my whole thinking about the damned book.

A third [reviewer]: “I bought the book after so many people at work were raving about it. I certainly know more about my co-workers now.”

Oh, yes, this has brought us all closer together. Thank you Fifty Shades of Gray.

Tagged: Asrai Deivn, erotic romance, Erotic romance novels, Facebook, Fifty Shades, Jennifer Armintrout, ranting, Reading, romance novels, romantic fiction, Shades of Gray, Twilight

Relationship tips from stories

I was writing the post on “Who’s your hero?” and it occurred to me there some tips to learned from a good romance character.

1. Stop trying to fix who they are. We picked our partners because we loved who they were, so many people want to change their partners. We just all need to start accepting people as they are. I’m going to try to do that more.

2. More hot sex. To heck with everything, get down and get dirty with your partner. Do what feels good to them. Then some of what feels good to you. And be open to trying something new.  Repeat until you can’t stand the pleasure.

3. My favorite line in all the Release from the Chains stories is when Bran says ” never apologize for who you are or what you want.” No one should make us feel bad about what we are or what we want. Stop apologizing, and don’t don’t don’t tame your dreams down for someone.

4. Be willing to make an effort. I love angst and drama in fiction, I don’t like it as much in real life, but it`s always there. We always have to make an effort and do some work to have anything worth having. Don’t let our partners forget they are special to us. Make an effort to do something special for them, something they like even if you aren’t fond of it or have never tried it.

5. Seduction. My muse likes smut. And it`s nature that we want to rub against each other. Embrace it and enjoy that part of yourself. Make some noise and throw your whole self into the act.

What has your favorite story taught you about life?

Tagged: Arts, Asrai Devin, DA2, dragon age 2, Erotic fantasy, Facebook, Fan fiction, FanFic, Fiction, life lessons, Literature, Online Writing, relationship, Romance, Short story

#Row80 Checkin

I haven’t done a check-in for ROW for so long I couldn’t even recall when the dates where going up or down.

I have been struggling with getting an idea past the planning stage. I start planning it and it looks good, I’m excited about my characters and the premise. Then I get to the plot and I realize I have no idea how to get from point A, beginning of the book, to Point B, my perceived end of the book. Just  wholesale, no ideas for decent conflict or knowledge about how the narrative will work. I suppose I could just fudge everything, but that makes for really bad books.

Anyway, well, here is the State of Asrai’s writing career.

Did my edits on When Love Knocks, finally have a title and I owe my best friend and beta reader 0.1% of royalties for this book or something. at least a nice gift certificate for a massage or a night out. SOMETHING. I hate titles.

Anyway, I nearly threw up when I opened the edits. But then it turned out they were wonderful and I am happier with the book than before. And Now I’m chomping at the bit to get Second Chance Romance edited.  After the next paycheck comes in probably. We’ll see. I want the story to remain the same, but the typos and bad spelling, grammar and missing commas to be fixed.

I brainstormed on promotion vs. writing the next book. And the general consensus is: write the next book.

Happy birthday to my Husband. Love you sweetheart. The best thing was we ate out Friday night because we never know if he’ll be home for supper or not, and my fortune cookie read “This evening will bring romance” or something like that. It’s a good thing when a fortune cookie tells you about your romantic prospects. (He doesn’t read this blog so he won’t get the message anyway).

We went to my cousin’s wedding dance, which was supposed to start at 8 PM. We got there at 8:30 and they were still doing speeches. We found my brother (my dad had to leave because he forget his pain pills at home, he had back surgery at Christmas) and found out they had the wedding ceremony almost 1.5 hours late because the bride got lost (well actually her limo couldn’t get to where it needed to be so they had to around). That needs to be in a novel somewhere. The groom freaking out because the bride hasn’t arrived, did she get cold feet? Someone can steal it if they want, I have no wedding scenes planned … yet. But I want a thank you!

And last but not least, I think I finally have another round of Amy and Scott planned out. Originally Amy was Mac and Scott was Corey Porter. I wrote the entire novel only to toss it, thankfully, Corey’s story, Complications over Coffee, is better for it. But I have written Amy’s story three more times since then, and it never turns out the way I want it to. I think I figured it all out. Again. Try it once more.

Okay, hope everyone out there had a good week, month, few months.

Tagged: Asrai Devin, Facebook, Fortune cookie, Relationships, row80, Row80goals, writing goals

I make art

I have a two year old, so it’s not a big surprise that the Red Guy, Elmo is pretty big in our house. And with a nine year old, pop music is also pretty big.

There are days I think I need to either invest in earplugs or my own mp3 player.

My son will watch this video dozens of times in a row if I let him. After a handful, I have to stop the madness.

Any Elmo fans?

Tagged: Asrai Devin, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Elmo parody, Jim Henson, LMFAO, LMFAO parody, Music, parody, Pop music, Sesame Street