Sunday, November 28, 2010

KISS

Being open to learning is something I strongly encourage as well as practice. Today I learned about KISS ~Keep it Simple, Stupid. Seems basic and rather common sense, but you'd be surprised how we humans love to complicate our lives with insignificant nonsense.
I took a week break from my novel, The Vampire Novelist, basically because I was at a stand still. I know where to take the story and what's suppose to happen, but I just couldn't get it written in an manner that wouldn't put the reader, never mind the writer, to sleep. My solution: just stop and take a break. During this week long break, it finally hit me what was happening. Besides the possibility that I may have a mild case of ADD, I realized I was over complicating the story for the sake of having an interesting plot. At the same time I read some online advice from other published authors of urban fantasy. What I learned from them was, that revising and editing one book for about six months before starting on the next is good practice for a beginner writer. So TVN is going on hold for a while now and I have begun revisiting my first novel Six Roses.
This is where the KISS comes in. The whole reason I scraped that book after spending almost a year writing and rewriting it was that it sucked. Why did it suck? Because I overcomplicated the plot. Therefore before I write anything else I'm going to polish, edit, simplify, and rewrite my vampire baby till it shines.
Keep it Simple Stupid!!!
~Mel

Friday, November 19, 2010

Potter time!

Hello,
Yes, I know it's been far too long since my last blog, but I have been busy. Last evening I had some friends over for dinner and one of them shared this Horoscope website. If you click on the link it will take you to mine, gemini. There on that page is a picture of a modern tarot/oracle card with the title "Monkey Mind." That card, the title, and the picture are a small glimpse of the inside of my brain. Spectacular, isn't it? It's a wonder I'm not on medication.
My writing has been all over the place. So many stories keep sprouting out of nowhere and demanding to be forged in ink or become a word document. However through the madness I have been able to keep plugging away at my vampire novel. Been kind of in a writing creative bubble, which has been keeping me in hermit status as of late. But I had to drop everything this evening to go see the seventh installment of Harry Potter. Excellent film. Bawled my eyes out at the end. And am extremely upset about the fact I have to wait eight bloody more months for Part Two. Thank goodness for good books that provide a pleasant distraction from the pain of waiting. Never mind the fact I have a book to finish. Scratch that two books. More details on that to come.
Lovely weekend to you all,
Mel