Today I had a scene I didn’t want to write.

I began it last night, but stopped before things went down, because a) I wasn’t sure exactly how everything would happen, and b) I’d met my word count for the day.

The scene: the MC confronts a relation at a very public, oh-lookit-the-community’s-all-here event. Yesterday, I kept running through my head all the options that would let MC off the hook–extricate herself without a huge public blowup. Her life really isn’t the public’s business, and she has more than enough on her plate already without having to deal with that kind of humiliation and stress. I found a solution that would do the trick, involving a different (and private) blow up later on.
It was all settled.

Except, when I woke up this morning, I knew it wasn’t.
The easy way out is, well, the easy way out, and there’s no way (in the world of my story) the MC’s relation wouldn’t throw the Screaming Fit From Hell. There just wasn’t.

I’m always saying that if you remain true to your characters, your story will write itself, because in any given situation there’s only so many ways your characters will act. They are who they are, this is how they behave, and if you want them to act differently you’ll have to change the situation–not the people.

So I sat at my computer with my coffee and headphones and wished myself anywhere else. Wishing my MC anywhere else–in a life where she didn’t have to go through this sticky, public hell.
But she isn’t, she just has her life.
And it’s not fair.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Because I made her deal.
The relation went from zero to sixty, bringing up resentments even I, as the author, didn’t know existed. The whole room went silent as everyone in the community got to hear a load of total, unjust bs about my MC, and I Hated. Every. Second. Of. It.

But I wrote it anyway, because that’s how it happened.

Because if her life was easy, my MC wouldn’t be who she is.

Because if she can’t overcome this, she’s not the person I take her for.

While I’ve know about #yalitchat for awhile, I just recently discovered the ning community. It’s flowing over with resources and info, you should check it out.

Speaking of YA, I’ve entered my first book contest over at Anna Staniszewski’s blog. She’s giving away SHIVER and THE MAZE RUNNER. Hurry, the contest ends tonight.

After reading Iain Broome’s article on it’s writery advantages, I joined the audio blogging community AudioBoo. While I may (more likely not) post audio snippets myself, I’m interested to follow & listen to other interesting people. Will be posting good feeds here as I find them.

Do Your Research. It’s among the top rules/tips for getting an agent, along with Follow Submission Guidelines, and Never Handwrite Anything. Excellent advice in theory, but sometimes impossible in practice. It’s amazing how many literary agents have an online presence of next to nil. Sure there are the big guns, such as Nathan Bransford and Kristin Nelson, who blog, tweet, offer advice, and have done numerous interviews. But many agents have nothing more then the blurb on their agency’s site and a page at Publishers Marketplace, if that. So you dig deeper, until you’re on page twenty of Google, browsing through links titled “All-Mercury News basketball teams dating back to 1960″ or “Heaven’s Nursery – SIDS Families.”

I’ve found research to be much more productive, and less time consuming, if I begin with something solid and work backward – an interview instead of just a name. To this end, I’ve complied a list of sites that offer interviews.

(More links and interviews after the jump)

On Friday, April 3rd, I completed my book. The second I’ve written, though the first I’ve finished.
!!!!!
Many thanks to Beeda and Brina for making me feel better.
But before I get into that, here’s what’s been keeping me busy:

Brina and I have started a new writing project on LJ, Deciduus. At least once each week, we write a poem building on a line/idea/concept of last verse. When I did these as a teenager, we would call them poemtrees because each one grew out of the last. Deciduus can currently be charted so: poem on writing > subject continuation (writing) > new subject built on verse line > idea expanded using word and base subject, but developed differently.

Along with Deciduus, Brina and I are keeping up a joint video log on YouTube, vlogthreads. (Brina created the lj community, I setup the YouTube account. Who’s more cultured here?) We wanted to do something along the lines of vlogbrothers. While that level of just plain coolness is hiding under the table in our videos, it’s a lot of fun and makes us keep up with each other. This can be difficult, since we live 14 hours apart (not to mention in different countries).

Mmm, you guessed it. There’s always something photo related in the works. I’m reorganizing my rates and offerings on the portrait side of things. But as I want to present this fully as a finished project, I’ll be mysterious about it for a while yet. But you can blame it for the lack of recent photo updates – I want most of the images featured to be new and as yet unseen. More fun that way.

And now, book excitement and angst.
(Read more…)