Loni Townsend's Blog, page 16

Too Distracted To Be Insecure #IWSG

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time again for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Like the title of the post says, I’ve been too distracted to be insecure lately. I got to spend last week delving into my creative artistic side to help a friend redo her branding. It was a fun project, and she’s happy, so I’m happy. I was also quite honored that she approached me. I like to play with graphics, but everything I know is self-taught. I’m okay with making stuff for myself, because it’s just me and my name that I’d drag down if it wasn’t perfect. But doing something for someone else? What if it wasn’t good enough? What if I failed to capture that essence of what that person wanted?

Thankfully, Sarah knew what spoke to her and provided examples to go off of. She could specify she wanted slightly darker gray in the background, and what font best represented her style. She guided me to slightly deeper reds, to the subtle placement of text, to color schemes. We got her to where she wanted to be.

I know I have no desire to do this work professionally, but I’m pleased with how this side project turned out.

Now I’m back to combing through my early chapters to remove references to names who aren’t important to book 2. Progress is coming along. And according to a couple of online critique partners who I picked because they haven’t read the first book, the changes have helped me in the clarity department. Woot!

IWSG Question of the Month – Have you ever surprised yourself with your writing? For example, by trying a new genre you didn’t think you’d be comfortable in?

Uh, no? Everything I’ve written has had some element of fantasy or supernatural. And I’ve never felt uncomfortable in another genre, I just possess no desire to spend time there if I’ve got other stuff I’m working on. Occasionally, I’ve written something I really like, and when I come back to it, I think, “hey, this is pretty good.” But I don’t find many other surprises in my writing.

Do you ever create for someone else? Do you enjoy art? Have you surprised yourself with your writing?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Too Distracted To Be Insecure #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Schedule It, Or It Ain’t Gonna Happen

I intended to post last week. But the first day of school turned into a fiasco where I’d sent my son to school on a bus he wasn’t supposed to ride, on a day when there wasn’t even a session for preschool. To compound my stress, I missed getting my husband to the bus stop on time, which made him late for work. He ended up picking up my slack by caring for our son while I went to work, but I don’t handle screwing up very well, and it cost him a vacation day he hadn’t planned on taking. *sigh*



But I should focus on the positive things, right? Like seeing my parents over the weekend, watching the eclipse with my husband while gorging myself on delicious food, and taking my kids to the state fair for my daughter’s birthday where they spent three hours riding every ride they met the height requirements for.

It’s been a busy time at the Town’s End, so I decided to schedule my post in advance to make sure it got out there.

Writing has been productive lately. I made an absolutely horrible, terrible, really good decision to remove certain elements from the second book, Isto. I do so in the name of reducing complexity, minimizing the mental load, and not alienating readers who don’t have the same amount of story knowledge about my world as I do. It sucks.

Some of you might wonder, what are these certain elements that you’re going to remove? Glad you asked! I’m getting rid of references to Han and Tegan, their lives/deaths, and how they related to the war. If that means anything to you, then you’ve probably read the first book. If it doesn’t, well, you’re better off not knowing. It’s not necessary to the second book. I realize that now. And gosh darn it, do I hate it.

Good news is that I’ve already finished rewriting the first two chapters. And by the time this post goes live, I should have chapter five rewritten as well. At least that’s the goal I set with my accountability partner. Oh, and speaking of her, she got engaged. (Yay!) And she had a birthday. (Yay!) And she really liked my chapter 15, which is saying something because she doesn’t particularly enjoy reading epic high fantasy. (Yay!)

After I finish taking out Han and Tegan, I should be able to return to killing that one character I mentioned a long time ago. Perhaps there’s a subconscious part of me that’s avoiding it? Hmmm.

Is life getting busy for you again? Have you ever had to take out something that was important to the character, but not the story? Do you typically schedule your blog posts in advance?

The post Schedule It, Or It Ain’t Gonna Happen appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Chopping Words To Make It Work #IWSG

I had to cut some of my darlings this past week. Last month, I said I wanted to take out an earthquake. I dragged my feet on it. If I took out the first earthquake, then I needed to find some other way to separate my character from the rest of his group. As I ran through scenarios in my mind, I came to the most likely cause being a backlash of the character’s power. Plus I’m a fan of characters creating their own mess, so it fits how I do things. Problem is, there’s a good chunk of information between when he uses his power and when he’s separated from his group. I could no longer fit it in without dragging down the series of events.

And so, I cut it. Normally I’m good at chopping out chunks of writing. I just slide it away into my “UNUSED” file and keep on going. Some of it will make it to later in the story, but other tidbits just won’t fit anywhere else because of timing. And I have to admit, I’m kind of sad. I like my little dialogue exchange and the teasing. But I can’t fit it in before the event, and it won’t work after.

I suppose I’m not really insecure this month. I succeeded in removing that first earthquake. But gosh darn it, I wonder if it was worth it now. We’ll see when I finish.

IWSG Question of the Month: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?

With reading: characters who wallow in their self-pity rather than take action to fix their issue. Sure it’s a character growth thing, but spend too long on it, and I’ll likely chuck a book across the room.

Writing/Edit: I don’t have an pet peeves that affect my own writing, at least not that I’ve noticed. I do see stuff that I suggest changes on when critiquing though: filtering, unnecessary dialogue tags, really long sentence fragments that don’t create a mental connection to the previous sentence, past progressive verbs, and using “was” for description. But are they pet peeves? Hmm.

Have you ever been sad after killing your darlings? What are your pet peeves?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Chopping Words To Make It Work #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

On Not Killing Characters #AmWriting

I suppose you can’t expect much concentration from a squirrel. I scamper off to my next objective, change my mind halfway, turn back, and turn back again—all the while forcing the considerate people around me to slam on their brakes.

Over a month ago, I expressed my utter joy that I got to murder a character. Well, I haven’t done it yet. I know, I know. It’s long past due. While I was working on his nefarious demise, my mind darted ahead, knowing the next stop was a second earthquake, based on another POV. As I tried to fit all the proper nuts into my mental tree, I just couldn’t see a good way to move from one earthquake to another in the murder-the-character POV.

Now some people suggested the earthquake POV could experience aftershocks that murder-the-character POV wouldn’t feel. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for my world. Earthquakes aren’t normal. They only occur for a particular reason, and when they do occur, it affects the entire continent. So it’s all or nothing.

So I set aside my plans of murder in favor of removing the earthquake from the other POV, because the earthquake takes place before the murder in the timeline, and if I was removing the earthquake, who knew what kind of ripple effect it would have on the other POVs, so might as well get it out of the way first. (Holy run-on sentence, SquirrelGirl!)

I was diligently working on that when a couple of people responded to a post I’d made in the Ladies Who Critique forums. See, I’m working on book 2, and I want people to be able to start reading this book and still enjoy it, even if they haven’t read book 1. Therefore, I needed to make sure I explained enough about the various powers and races for people not to be lost and confused.

It turns out, some things needed a bit more background. With the swish of a furry tail, my mind leapt to new branches and I found myself bobbing on the idea of a pre-prologue prologue. This one would be nine centuries before the start of the book, when the humans first arrived on my elemental-inhabited land. Again, I abandoned my progress and chased this the new direction.

Good news, though. I set my goal with my accountability partner to finish a scene in a week. I did finish writing my pre-prologue prologue, coming in at 3600 words, though it’s still in a rough draft. With that out of the way, I can return to the earthquake, and then back to killing the character after that.

Oh, and I did promise pictures of my aqua hair. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken any good ones of myself, but here’s one with me and my daughter. Her hair goes from natural, to aqua, to fuchsia in a nice rainbow effect. She’s definitely the cuter between the two of us.

Are you the type to write where you feel driven, or do you force yourself to finish a scene before tackling something new? If you could dye your hair any color, which color would you choose?

Squirrel photo taken by Camelyn Gast.

The post On Not Killing Characters #AmWriting appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Aligning Events #IWSG

It’s July! Sheesh. Time is zooming by.

With it being the first Wednesday of the month, it makes it time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. What’s making me insecure this month?

Time. Except, not in the way I typically lament it. Sure, I would love a few more hours a day to be able to work on my writing, but right now, I’m just trying to get everything to line up in my story’s timeline. I’ve mentioned before that I write out of order. A couple of NaNoWriMos ago, I wrote 50K worth of one character’s POV, and in that amount, there’s two earthquakes, a day apart.

Now that I’m getting to the other POVs, I’ve realized I don’t want two earthquakes. It doesn’t jive well for moving things forward. To resolve this, I’m taking out the first earthquake, but that means I have to rearrange scenes and adjust my timeline. So, I’ve set aside my momentum to rework the events. It doesn’t bode well for me keeping up with my accountability partner, but I can’t move forward until I’ve got it all timed right.

IWSG Question of the Month: What is one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing?

If I were to only pick one, I’d have to say: I need to get multiple opinions about my work. Different people have different strengths. Some are awesome with grammar, others can really grasp the emotions. People might disagree with the quality of work I’m producing, and comparing the feedback has helped me learn the difference between personal preference and something that really needs to be fixed.

Have you ever had to change your story’s timeline? What lessons have you learned? How is time treating you?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Aligning Events #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Halfway Through 2017 #life

With the end of June coming in just a couple of days, I’ve been reflecting on this year. It hasn’t been the greatest. I had my share of emotional breakdowns, lamented the many medical issues plaguing my family, and despaired that I wouldn’t finish anything.

But there’s no point to focusing on the bad, right?

My husband and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary this year. We did one of those escape rooms. We’d done one earlier for my birthday back in March. We didn’t make it out when we were in a group with 6 others, and my husband insisted it was because the other people thwarted us. This time, it was just the two of us and we made it out with 14 minutes to spare. Goes to show we make a pretty good team.

We followed that up with street tacos and a trip to the candy store, before catching a showing of Wonder Woman on the big screen. I laughed. I cried. And then my husband and I caught some raw fish on the way home before binge-watching DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on Netflix.

Rough sketch as I acquaint myself with my new computer.

My best friend watched the kids for us, and it amused me when she said (with great surprise) that my son was really good. It would seem Babyzilla is only his terror-striking self when I’m around. But both kiddos enjoyed their adventures with their unofficial aunt and asked when I would be leaving them with her again.

Other notable things:

I’ve since dyed my hair aqua. I’ll have pictures later. My husband bought me an awesome 2-in-1 laptop. It’s strong enough to handle all my graphics software, plus it’s Windows Ink compatible, which lets me draw as if I were using a sketch pad. I also use it for playing WoW with my husband and, of course, writing.

I managed to finish one scene in the past week, so I finally met my goal with my accountability partner. This week, I’m fairly certain I can kill the character I want to kill. *crosses finger*

How has 2017 been treating you so far? Can you believe the year is halfway over? What are you celebrating lately?

The post Halfway Through 2017 #life appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Setting Realistic Goals

A couple weeks ago, I told the world about teaming up with a friend to hold each other accountable. She has successfully met her goal for the past couple of weeks. Me? My character is still alive.

Considering I’ve written over 2K a week, I’m not disappointed. But it does reveal that I’m horrible at estimating how long it will take to get to a particular event in my story. I’m one of those plantser writers–I know where I’m headed, but I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen on the way. In my case, it was an introduction with the Soon-To-Be-Murdered’s son, followed by the discovery of a secret library, and then a meeting with a bunch of bad people to show who STBM is at odds with and why they might want to murder him. I still need to get STBM upstairs for the earthquake that is going to get blamed for STBM’s death. But based on the sparks of ideas that have flashed within my truly dark mind, I think another character is going to pop in and throw some menace around before we get there.

So, I’ve updated my weekly goal with my friend. Instead of trying to kill off STBM, I’m instead going to endeavor to finish one scene a week.

Adding 2K a week and not quite reaching the STBM’s death has added a bit of a hiccup to my story lay out though. This book has multiple POVs, and I’m trying to keep the days on track across all of them. There’s the first day, the third day, the sixth day, and then the earthquake. Since the earthquake appears in all four POVs, it needs to land in the same place in the book. As I keep adding stuff to my current POV, I have to shift the other POVs so that things read smoothly. It’s led me to rethink my current chapters.

I don’t know if it’s my desire for uniformity or what, but for some reason I’ve always tried to keep my chapters the same length. I’d group the scenes based on theme and flow, but most chapters stayed close to a 5K word count. After reading responses to a Facebook post I posed, I think I’m safe to have whatever word count fits. As a result, I’ve broken out some of my chapters in half, having just one scene instead of two. That bumps my finished chronological chapter count from 17 to 22, which is 80K (out of 154K that I’ve written so far for the story overall).

It feels good to be on track again with writing, and that life has let up enough to allow it.

Here are a couple of songs that have been tied to my current POV character since my discovery of her true intentions.

Imagine Dragons – Believer

Young The Giant – Something To Believe In

You might recognize a theme there…

Have you ever set your goals too high? Do you have any habits when it comes to chapters? What songs have you been listening to lately?

The post Setting Realistic Goals appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

It May Be Awesome #IWSG

After months of misery, I’m happy to report that life is AWESOME. Medical problems still persist and my house is a wreck, but writing wise, life is good.

Last IWSG had me hoping I could finish chapters 8 and 9 in Isto. I did even better! I had breakthroughs on a character scale, decided to murder a character who had previously died due to a natural disaster, and gave an inanimate object a life of its own. I have 14 chapters I can confidently call finished and I added 7K to my total keepable word count.

So what makes me an insecure writer this month? I just made a pact with a friend to hold each other accountable. She’s aiming for a certain number of words a week, I’m going more based on concept. I must kill the character I mentioned earlier. Oh, I’m all sorts of excited to do so, it’s just getting it all laid out properly. Can I get all the scenes finished before next Tuesday? We shall see.

IWSG Question of the Month: Did you ever say “I quit?” If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

Honestly? Nope. I’m a bit of an odd duck when it comes to writing. I have no great aspirations of commercial success. I don’t do prompts. I don’t write for other people. I don’t try to make stories work.

I write to tell Derek’s tale. Oh, I might deviate from time to time if I’m invited/encouraged to participate in an anthology. Especially if inspiration strikes. But I always return to Derek. If I lost him, then yeah, I might quit. Until then, I will keep plugging to share him with other people.

How was your May? Do you have an accountability partner? How do your approach your writing/creative goals?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post It May Be Awesome #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

I’ve Had It Wrong The Entire Time! #AmWriting

I’m still on my LaTonya kick this week. Only now, I have inspiration!

LaTonya’s been the toughest character for me to figure out. I thought I knew her, but it turns out I had it wrong.

Who wouldn’t want to bond with Naomi?

Okay, I didn’t have it totally wrong. Everything in my old post is still applicable. But I kept pushing her to be a woman bent on revenge–cold, distant, filled to the brim with hate for the monster that killed her guardians there was no room for anything else.

Except she refused to comply! Stubborn woman. She kept wanting to bond with Naomi or cry on MaTisha’s shoulder or get chatty with Liz. She wanted to be part of the other characters’ lives… and that’s not the behavior of a revenge-obsessed, consumed-by-rage person. (I know this because a former therapist gave me a list of traits of such a person. Thank you, Jeanne!)

That’s when I realized something. LaTonya is passionate, not cold. She is fighting for a cause. She isn’t bent on revenge; she’s an activist! She wants to rally people to her side to give her more power to put an end to that miserable monster. She might do some unscrupulous stuff from time to time, but it’s for the greater good!

And gosh darn it, am I excited! I’m reworking her earlier scenes to reflect the differences. They might be minor, but it changes the big picture. And it is invigorating!

Have you ever come to a realization about a character? Have you had issues with characters not behaving like how you envisioned them? What did you end up doing about it?

The post I’ve Had It Wrong The Entire Time! #AmWriting appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

A Monstrous Amount of Words

Me: Woohoo! I have 11 chapters done in Isto so far.

Friend: Go you!!

Me: Scary tidbit: 11 chapters is 60K.

Friend: Holy f***, Dude.

I’m not even halfway through, and I’ve written 143K toward what I believe is mostly keepable content for Isto. Crazy right? Of that amount, I’ve only got 11 chapters worth of chronological, coherent story.

Isto has multiple POVs. I tend to hop into one POV and stick there until I run out of whatever I’ve visualized in my head. Maybe it’s that scene where Cameron gets literally kicked off a cliff, or the one where Derek gets kidnapped by the earth element. I just jump around and write whatever is most exciting to me and come back to tie the scenes together with transitions later.

She has her sword!

Yet in my hopping, I neglected MaTisha and LaTonya. I had placeholder scenes in earlier chapters (like 8 and 9–my goal from last week, which I accomplished BTW) saying “MaTisha protects the palace” or “LaTonya gets a sword”. But those scenes morphed as things do with my writing. They turned into three or four scenes apiece. In fact, I’m still trying to get LaTonya her sword (hopefully in chapter 12).

And the word count keeps growing.

At least I approach my words as I do my characters. I may have a ton of them, but there’s no guarantee they won’t get killed before I reach the end. *evil grin*

Do you tend to write a lot and cut later? Do you jump around and write whatever scenes inspire you or force yourself to follow a linear plan? What do you think of my LaTonya picture?

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