Drafting/Revison Fatigue

You know how you can be deep, deep in a draft and just want to be DONE? That was me on Friday. I probably would have rushed the ending if someone hadn't given me great advice:

This is my dog. Her eyes aren't normally that red and scary. :P

Take a break.

If you feel like your work will be suffering from working on something, take a day off. I did. You will come back feeling like your work is a lot better than it would have been!
*Don't use this post to take a day off school and make your teachers (or boss) mad. This mainly refers to writing. :P

Things I've learned lately as a writer

Okay, guys, I'd like to first say I'm sorry for this blog going... Kinda crazy! But it's now back to being my writing blog, which is how it should be. *hugs blog* I've missed it! 
Here are some things I've learned lately about writing:

• Get betas. They can help you solve those weird problems you don't know how to fix. 
• Follow that little voice. You know, the smart alec that says "That shouldn't be happening yet!" 
• Your main character is not supposed to act fully like a human being. That may seem weird, but I forgot my MC is supposed to double as a narrator, too. Which means that sometimes, she has to pause and explain things to the reader.

Like so. Gif from tumblr.

• Use dialogue tags sometimes.
• Don't fully take the advice of one writing blog. Get writing advice from many places and take each's advice with a bit of salt. Especially when they contradict each other.
• Throw out the rules when they appear to be strangling your writing, but only consciously do so. 
• If you think something's wrong, and a beta reader agrees with you, it's wrong.
• Did I mention get betas? :P I've learned so much about writing in the ... Eh, four days I've had one? And not just people to cheer you on, people who can say "hey, you need to slow down and give the reader backstory/worldbuilding;" "this is telling;" "your characters are OOC," etc. And so on. Because as it turns out, I don't know everything. :P

Changes... Again

So I ditched this blog thinking I could find a better writing blog out there.... Well I couldn't! (Shocker!) Writing about horses doesn't interest me like I thought it would, so I'll be taking those down and putting some of my favorite writing posts up again, and resuming this as a writing blog. Sorry for being so wishy-washy guys! I'll probably change my url at some point, but I'm not sure what to.

Fantasy/Scifi and Real Life Commentary.

It has always annoyed me when people say that Harry Potter is just a children's series. Maybe I'm being a bit of a fangirl here, but there is SO much real life stuff hidden in the pages! (FYI, this is a post mostly for scifi/fantasy writers, though maybe other genres can benefit, too?) I'm using mostly HP and Doctor Who as examples of real life found in fantasy/scifi.

HP either is anti or has metaphors representing:

1. Torture.
2. Genocide.
3. Prejudice.
4. Bullying.
5. Alcoholism/addiction (Winky)
6. AIDS (Lupin being a werewolf is supposed to be a metaphor for a person with AIDS.)
7. Date rape. (Think poor Tom Sr.)
8. Newspapers that print lies.
9. Crappy political leaders.

DW has commentary on:

1. Plastic surgery. (Cassandra.)
2. Suicide.(Van Gogh)
3. Family. (Rose and her parents.)
4. Confidence. (Donna)
5. Change and repentance (think of when Rose wanted to show the Dalek mercy.)
6. Genocide.
7. Being forced to be a parent. (When Ten had his DNA used without consent to make Jenny could be seen as a metaphor for surprise parenthood.)
8. PTS (Nine and the Time War. One of my favorite bits of character development on Doctor Who ever was watching Nine fight his PTS over the war and what he did. *sigh* I miss Nine.)
9. Love, and gaining it and losing it. (Rose! And River! And the Ponds!)
10. Knowing when to walk away from a bad relationship. (Martha.)

And my own work in progress so far has a metaphor for cloning. So, fantasy/scifi writers, you want to make your book more real? Pick up a newspaper and ask yourself what you could do to make metaphors of real life. :)

PS

Yes, I realize that this isn't a Myers-Briggs post. Next Sunday. ;) And yes, I know that today isn't Sunday, but my time it's only 44 minutes to Sunday, so I think it counts!

What Not Writing can Teach you about Writing

Biggest contradiction ever, right? Well, not writing can teach you plenty about writing. Let me tell you a little about my writing life for the past eleven months.

• I get into writing so much I pretty much lived and breathed it.
• Hardly take a break or think about anything else for nine months.
• Finally take a break in September/October this year. Read some books. Watched a lot of Doctor Who:

Source as far back as I can trace it. Including this because blog posts without pictures are weird, and Doctor/Rose is a great pairing. :)

• Start writing again in tiny bits.Marvel at the improval in my writing because of the break.

Okay, first. Making my life writingwritingwriting was kind of unhealthy. Well, okay, not just kind of, more like a lot. It caused me to put so much pressure on myself that I started to hate writing. (Not to mention, my prose sounded really repetitive.)

And hating writing's not right, because I love writing. 

Anyway, I took a break for a month and half and, as I said above, doing stuff like reading books and watching TV had really helped my prose. For starters, watching TV gave me a good idea how people react to stuff in ways other than "she smiled" "he laughed"  etc. And reading? It's given me even more ways to fix up that stale prose. Like, I forgot that when describing something, you could compare something to something else. Like "Professor McGonagall gave Harry a hawk-like look." (Not a quote from HP that I am aware, I just made it up on the spot, lol. If there is a quote like that in HP, then my subconscious is channeling Jo, apparently.) Rather than my usual description of a stern gaze, which is "She narrowed her eyes." Saying that a gaze is hawk-like is far more interesting.

Anyway, hope you guys liked the post! Soon I may do a post on Myers-Briggs tests and writing. Also, I just noticed that I have 29 followers. That feels like a huge milestone. Thanks guys!
Also, I don't like making commits for fear of breaking things, but I want to at least try to update this once a week. We'll see if that happens. What do you guys think of me updating the blog every Sunday?

What JK Rowling Can Teach Us about Picking a Genre

Have you heard that every author should pick a genre? It's been mentioned on Go Teen Writers and I agree with it--it gives your readers a good idea of what to expect. I, for example, write YA speculative fiction. That said...
JK Rowling shaped my childhood so much, I don't know who I'd be if I hadn't read her books.

Source My favorite J.K. Rowling book. :)

But, I have a complaint. Now that she's done with writing HP, she's willy-nilly writing whatever she feels like--adult novels! Children's books! While she has the right to publish whatever she wants, as a reader, this is kind of disorienting, because I don't know what I'm getting from her anymore. A book about dentists? An epic fantasy? A historical? It's far more comforting as a reader if I know the author will be writing something in the same genre, or a similar one. Kami Garcia, for example, after writing the Beautiful Creatures books, for example, is writing another YA paranormal romance--though I think this one is darker that BC. Her writing partner, Margaret Stohl, while she's venturing out and writing a YA scifi--which I can't wait to read!--she's still staying within YA spec fic. I have an idea of what to expect from both of them. (Or at least I think I do, lol!)
I'm not saying that you have to write the same exact genre and again. I'm not suggesting if you write historicals, you can only write about WWII forever. You can write about other periods in time. But it would be weird to see you write a fantasy.

What do you guys think? Should an author be able to write whatever comes to mind, or should they pick a genre, even if it's a general one like speculative fiction?

What BC can Teach Us About Originality in Writing

So, y'all know that I am big fan of the Caster Chronicles by now. Like, it's my second favorite series out there. (First is Harry Potter.) Anyway, the release of the movie trailer has gotten me wondering: Why do I like this series so much?

BTW, before we get too far, here is the trailer:

If that premise doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will. :P

Anyway, as you can see from the trailer, Lena doesn't get to chose if she's good or evil. It will be decided for her when she turns sixteen. I mean, that's revolutionary for a book. I've never read a book where the MC has no choice if they get to be good or evil. I mean, what? That's totally new. I mean, even in my own books, the MC gets to chose if she wants to be good or evil. Anyway, aside from the amazing characters, beautiful setting, I think what I love most about those books, is how original they manage to feel. I've felt things I've never felt before while reading this series.

Source. Englert and I-can't-spell-his-last-name don't really fit my mental picture, but this does fit the tone of the book a little. I love Ethan/Lena. I don't care how many people say she's emo, she's having a hard time. *Restrains self from going on an EthanXLena defense rant.* I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP!

Anyway, my point here is, is that the authors take risks. They're willing to do things are the reader won't even consider in order to make their story a bit more original. Ugh, I really wish I could go into this deeper without spoilers--and trust me, you don't want the plot spoiled, but I can think of off the top of my head... Uh, five times that they did something that absolutely stunned me. And now I feel like they've challenged me as a writer to always ask... How can I take this plot further? How can I shock the reader, deepen the stakes? Make things even harder? Make the reader's heart break a little more?