Lesa Howard's Blog, page 2

Out of body experience

I've been listening to the first 25 chapters of the Phantom's Dance audio book. The narrator sent them to me so I could let her know what I think. Well, I haven't got a clue how to tell her what I think. It's awesome! Absolutely. Awesome. And, yes, awesome is an overused word, but so is surreal, which is the other word that keeps coming up. Su--rreal!

Honestly, the only way I know how to describe it is that it's like an out-of-body experience. I've written several books and as a member of a critique group I've heard my material read out loud many times over. But this is a whole different animal. In the beginning, I felt giddy and thought I wrote this. But as I've continued to listen, with the various characters appearing and the narrator's accents and voice inflections bringing them to life, it's become more like Holy cow!! I wrote this? A couple of weeks ago, I Tweeted something about an author never being able to hear their work for the first time, but I do believe this may be the closest thing to that. Even though I know what's going to happen, can even say the words before the narrator, it feels new to me. So it is awesome, surreal, amazing, cool, and any other overused description one can come up with, and I can't wait to hear the finished product.

Things Writers Do

THINGS WRITERS DO
(The Short List)

Write
Research project(s)
Practice writing (yes, this is different than writing)
Read about other writers
Follow other authors' blogs
Follow publishers' blogs
Tweet, post, and blog about writing
Submit, submit, and submit manuscripts
Cry alone in the shower after rejection from publisher you just knew was THE ONE
Research agents, because the publisher you want doesn't take unsolicited manuscripts or is closed to submissions unless via an agent
Cry in the shower because agent rejected manuscript
Read—even the books that you know you could have written better
Attend writing conference to polish writing
Attend online webinars to polish writing
Write
Send query letters
Upgrade computer and writing software
Learn how to use that new software
Listen to dialogue in the grocery store, doctor's office, church, etc.
Filter through the copious amounts of craft/writing information out there to find what suits your style or voice
Cry in the shower because you can't figure out what your style or voice is
Enter writing contests
Never hear a single word on your status in the writing contest
Bite off nails before opening that email from the publisher reading your thousandth rewrite of that stellar manuscript
Write
And, yeah, this is the short list

author spotlight

Visit the We Live and Breathe Books Blog for my author spotlight and a little info on creating a phantom.

http://weliveandbreathebooks.blogspot...

Rewriting The Phantom of the Opera

Phantom's Dance has been on blog tour with Xpresso Book Tours this week. And once I got past the jitters of the first few days, what some of the bloggers were saying about reworking/rewriting a classic started to sink in. So I thought I'd jot down some of the things that led to my interpretation of the Phantom

I was first a fan of the many movie versions, including the wonderfully cheesey 70s adaptation Phantom of the Paradise, and then the novel. And, of course, there's Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera the movie and the play. Then at some point, I read Alex Flinn's Beastly and absolutely loved what she did with her rendition of the Beauty and the Beast and became inspired. This niggle started in the back of my mind, a desire to write a YA Phantom. I ignored that little niggle for a while though, not sure how it could be done. But my imagination being what it is (impossible to turn off or ignore) I eventually decided to go for it. I had no idea just what a ride it was going to be, though.

To start with, Phantom's Dance, as it is now, bears little resemblance to what I first envisioned. Originally, my Erik was going to be a young homeless man, living in the tunnels beneath the streets of Houston. His face was damaged in a gang fight, and he wore an over-sized hoodie, keeping it pulled low to cover the scars. I wanted him to be a hip-ho dancer who would bring Christine, a ballerina who'd lost her way in her craft, into the world of hip-hop. That was how I saw it in the planning stages, and some of that made it into the first draft. But as sometimes happens, when I started writing and the characters emerged, especially Christine and the choice to tell her story form the first person point-of-view, I found there were a lot of things I'd need to change about my original plan. Consequently, Erik became an entirely different character than I'd anticipated. Truthfully, the entire book became something I hadn't really anticipated.

So that's a part of how Phantom's Dance came about. And as the last day of the book blog tour approaches, I'm breathing a great sigh of relief because overall, avid fans seem okay with the changes I made to their beloved Phantom. Phew!

Free download of Phantom's Dance

During the month of July, PHANTOM'S DANCE is free at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Smashwords, and more. Sorry Kindle users. Amazon won't go below .99, but if anyone wants a copy Message me and I'll send it to you.


Lesa Howard

A writer's measure of success

All day I've worked on a pitch line for my latest work-in-progress. I hate, hate, pitch lines. That's probably because I am very much an ADD plotter, also known as a pantser. I've been known to plot by the seat of my pants. I'm trying to overcome that in the hope of being more organized and thereby more efficient. So today I took on the single sentence summary. It took me the better half of a day, but I finally got something that resembles a pitch line. It still has to be refined, but I understand now why so many writing coaches/teachers consider it so important. It really made me take a look at my character's motivation, wants and desires, and purpose. So, though technically I only wrote one sentence today, I feel like I was successful

Research and the crazy

In doing some research this week, I reached out to a friend in the medical field. I haven't seen her in over a year, so the first thing out of my mouth was, "Okay, I know this will sound crazy, but hear me out." Now she knows I'm a writer, but even this was over the top for me. It involves poison, codependency, and Munchhausen's by Proxy, or child abuse. Yeah, crazy.

Does anyone really care what I have to say?

So after a trial run a few years ago, I've avoided blogging like the plague. I could give the excuse that I have too much on my plate to take the time to blog, and that blogging eats into my writing time, but the truth is I simply don't think I have anything worthwhile to say, and nobody really gives a crap anyway.

However, I realize if I hope to have anyone read Phantom's Dance, and possibly the books I have written under the name Lesa Boutin, I have to come out of my own head and begin communicating with people.

Soooo, for the news. PHANTOM'S DANCE is going on a digital book tour in a couple of months, and here's the latest info.
http://xpressobooktours.com/2014/04/2...