I've been working on a new novel. pink_siamese referred to it as a "starfucker story" and that was the working title that stuck, LOL. I have hope for this one because it fits much more neatly into a relationship/drama box than TSOD, which was definitely more cross-genre.

I'm about 50k words in, so I'm bit beyond halfway to where I'd like to be in terms of word count. I'm enjoying the story thus far though and there's been a couple really rawr scenes, although I don't think the sex is as hardcore as in TSOD - not to say it's any less kinky (in fact, I'd say it's more kinky) but it just feels less hard to me for some reason. That's probably a good thing too. ;)

It is 4:17 AM as I write this and I am sitting in the "Park Car" on the train, because it's the only place with a power plug. I woke up sometime around 1:30 AM with a first sentence in my head, so I sneaked from my berth and disappeared to go write.

Half an hour into working on that story I suddenly realized that what I was really itching to do was work on a story that's been sitting on the back burner for awhile; almost two hours later, I'm 2500 words in and things are about to get really sizzling. Maybe I'll be able to finish it tomorrow night. (pink_siamese and abigor, it's the "osteohemo" story. I'm actually quite pleased with how it's gone thus far.)

I find it interesting how anxiety-producing it is to think about submitting my work to potential publishers. I fully expect to get rejection letters in return (I may actually die of shock if anything ever gets accepted), so why does it scare me to submit my work when I've already reconciled myself to failure?

I think there's some tiny part of me that secretly hopes for success. No matter that 98% of me knows there will be a long stream of rejections, that 2% of me hopes for acceptance. And it's that 2% that's afraid of submitting my stories.

The problem is, you can't eradicate that 2%. If you did, if you expected failure with 100% of yourself, then you'd never bother submitting the stories in the first place. It's that smidgen of hope that makes you submit them, on the tiny wee chance that somebody may actually like your stuff enough to publish it.

Dear new story,

You're being an asshat. I had a general plot for you and now you're messing with me. You're all, "Hell no, tamago, you're not making this rape scene hot. No, you're going to write it realistic and awful and completely unsexy, and that totally messes up the whole neat little plot you had going. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

I hate it when my smut stories get all siriuz, and you're pissing me off. GODDAMNIT WHY CAN I NOT JUST WRITE A STRAIGHTFORWARD JILL-OFF STORY FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Why do you feel this need to be aggravating? Why can't you just come out hot the way you were in my head?

ARGH.

Sincerely,
Robin

The only context I can offer: I was in a subway bathroom and I wondered what it would be like to overhear two people having a quickie in a stall. The first nine or ten lines rose in my brain and that's how it started. Then it went off on its own track and turned out odd. But it is what it is. Super-short (less than 400 words). Really just a brain purge.

( Cut for NSFW text. )

Teenagers. They can find a way to make anything awkward and uncomfortable.



Okay, so I actually have no idea where Cookies 2 is going. We'll see. In the meantime there has been awkwardness and sweetness and stupidity and smut. But mostly it's been the particular brand of stupidity that is unique to creatures who are controlled almost entirely by their hormonal system.

Teenagers. For reals. *shakes head*

Editing continues, endless process that it is. After I'd finished editing the first 100 pages I suddenly discovered my main character's voice, which was both annoying (in that I wish I had heard her before I'd edited those 100 pages) and a relief (because it's a far better end product if your characters have a clear voice).

So I started doing a dual edit; I returned to page 1 and started working forward, rewriting it with her voice. I also continued editing from page 100 onwards, also editing with her voice in mind. I skip back and forth depending on my mood. I'm now editing at page 35 (what I think of as the "lower edit") and also at page 127 (aka the "upper edit"). Eventually the "lower edit" will reach page 100 and then that one will be done, and all that will remain is to continue the "upper edit" until we reach the end of the book (which is at 263 pages right now).

I have a strong suspicion that this second-draft rewrite will end up taking two or three times as long to complete as writing the original story did.

I've been sick for a couple days and not up to writing. I finally got back to it twenty minutes or so ago, and I found that going through my ritual (opening Safari and putting it to the right of the screen, opening iTunes and putting it on the left side of the screen, opening my word processing program and centering it so I can see both windows behind it, making sure the background color on the word processor program feels right to me*, putting on my headphones, and then starting my music)... it felt a little like sex. The part where you're ready for it and the anticipation is rising and the clothes are starting to come off... yes. It's that kind of feeling. That longing for jumping back into it, of seeing what everything looks like underneath.

I don't think I'll be able to write much tonight, since I can already feel my very limited energy flagging. But I'm digging returning to the unique absorption of writing.

* I change it fairly often - right now it's a medium-purple, a dusky kind of color.

Two days of "WOOO!" in a row! I have, as of a minute ago, finished editing the first 100 pages. I'm now over a third done - there's only 160 more pages to go. (And then some additional scenes to write. And possibly a rehaul of the first chapter to make it more saleable. But still, looking at it in terms of page count, I am more than a third of the way there!)

And then the second draft will be done and ready to submit to my agent. :D (Of course at that point, she'll read it and then tell me, "Okay, rewrite this and change that section and maybe you should add something here..." and it will be back to the editing.)

BUT PROGRESS IS BEING MADE! WOOO!

I have finally gotten the first scene where Andre and Anna meet to a point where I am happy with it. Rereading it today necessitated only minor changes and then a great big squee. (We'll see though, pink_siamese may knock some sense into me after she reads it, LOL.)

I really need a "squee" lemonhead. :)

ETA: It is good! I am doubly asquee. This scene is crucial because this is the very first interaction between the main characters; if it isn't plausible, then nothing that comes after will be either. So... WOOO!

It's time to put on some music and go edit a really smutty scene.

I'm hard at work editing and rewriting The Shadows of Dusk but these other story ideas keep appearing. They're like little seeds drifting down from the sky, implanting themselves in my grey matter. There they stay, germinating in my subconscious, until one day I wake up with a first sentence in my head.

That first sentence is crucial to me. I need to have a good first sentence. Whether it's the first sentence of a new story or the first sentence of the next scene in the current story I'm writing is irrelevant; either way, I need to have it before I can write. The first sentence gives me an idea where the story is supposed to go. It's the starter clue in a treasure hunt, and without it, I don't know where to begin.

So I kick a suggestion down to my subconscious, and it chews on it for awhile, and then I wake up with the first sentence or two in my head. I sit down and write out that sentence and usually everything else follows from there, a cascade of letters and words and paragraphs that eventually becomes a story.

It's a terribly exciting feeling to wake up with a first sentence, because you never know where that particular treasure hunt is going to lead.

Title: Liquid
Author: tamago23

( I know it's unusual, but it's totally SFW. There is nary a genital reference to be seen. )

I am a writer who needs music. For any individual character in my stories, I have a playlist titled with their name. I also have playlists titled with particular feelings - for example, "Sensual", "Rough", etc., so that I can choose an appropriate one for the scene I need to write. I also have playlists for individual scenes (if I know I'll be writing a particularly important scene coming up and I know how it will feel and who will be involved, I'll make a playlist.)

I can write without music, but it's much more difficult for me.

Today, as I've been editing The Shadows of Dusk, I've been really feeling Korn. Specifically, "A.D.I.D.A.S." (which has always been a really funny song to me) and "Make Me Bad" have been working for me quite well.

( Lyrics - contains obscenity. )

I'm intrigued by the editing. The bones are the same but the flesh is often getting the equivalent of an Extreme Makeover.

( Sample passage from the first draft and the second draft - it's an early scene which is establishing some of the characters in the brothel. NSFW. )

Part of my ritual for writing is that I have to find a desktop that has the same feel to me as what I'm writing, and then I have that image on my desktop while I'm working on that particular story.

It occurred to me that some people might be interested, so these are the wallpapers I use for my two current stories.
( Behind the cut, possibly NSFW. )

I realized today that part of why Meridia is so much fun to write is because she's at the equivalent level of a mid-adolescent in terms of discovering herself and others in a romantic and/or sexual capacity, but since she's an adult, there isn't any squickiness to following along with her voyage.

Things are about to heat up. =^.^= (Although by "heat up", I mean in that slow kind of Meridia way. They're still a long way off from the old in-out, or even from obviously deliberate touching where they both know what's going on.)

But WOO, I can't wait to finish writing this scene tomorrow! :D It's awesome how something can be totally hot without having actual straight-up raunch in it.

Just under 700 words today and it's taken me five hours or so to do. It's a far difference from plowing through thousands of words a day on the novel, and it's going to take me awhile to readjust to the slower pace of writing Meridia's story.

Despite my frustration over the slow pace, I am frequently finding myself asquee at the end of these scenes. I love writing Meridia. I dig the way she sees the world, her unique quirks, the way she reveals herself in all these unintentional ways. Even though she's difficult, I enjoy writing her because she continually surprises me.

That may sound strange to non-writers, the idea of a character you've made up surprising you. How can they surprise you when they exist only as a figment of your imagination - when you are the one dreaming up their actions and words? But the fact is that a lot of writing is subconscious; the character does not spring into your head fully realized. It's like starting a relationship after going on a few dates, you know some information about them but it's a continual process of learning more. When your subconscious is the one guiding the characters, they can often surprise your conscious awareness with the things they do.

Writing is a process of discovery for the writer, just as reading it is for the reader.