Well?

This is day 7 on antibiotics and I swear it's killing my creative brain cells as well as the infection. Here's the problem. I've worked on MRU's this last week and got about 1400 words using that formula. (Below is an example). And all I can say I'm learning the process. (slowly)

But it isn't going well. With a stuffy nose, scratchy throat, coughing and some pressure, (I sound like a Nyquil commercial). I'm just not feeling the love of the new direction of the story.

Let me show you my progress/process and see if you notice MRU.

Original: 

Rebel Tyler was so far outside her comfort zone when she opened the door to her bungalow, all she could see was the king sized bed along the left wall sticking out like a giant clown trying to stuff his body into a kiddie car at the circus. Never taking her eyes off the bed, she teetered in the doorway unable to make her feet take the first step inside. She needed courage, something she knew she didn’t normally have, but then she purposefully dwelled on her parents and Mr. Michaels waiting for her at brunch tomorrow morning, and the thought of them getting angrier and angrier by the minute when she didn’t show up was all the momentum she needed to take that first step across the threshold.

Revised:

As the bungalow door swung open, all Rebel Tyler could see was a king sized bed consuming every inch of an already cramped space – like one of those fat clowns that try to stuff themselves into the tiny cars at the circus. Seeing the bed, her heart skipped, and she froze on the step. “Just breathe girl,” she muttered and began to fan with her palm. She closed her eyes, her thoughts dancing in a thousand directions, she tried to concentrate on what brought her to this place. She began to imagine her parents and Mr. Michaels waiting for her at brunch in the morning. She could picture them in her mind fidgeting impatiently in their seats, their expressions growing more and more angry as they realized she wasn’t coming. The image made her smile, if only slightly, but the thought of standing them up emboldened her to go forward. Filled once more with singular intent she took a deep breath, wet her lips, and stepped purposefully across the threshold. 

The paragraph above is great. But I can't take credit for it. My son, Computer genius and writer extraordinaire gave it the oomph it needed. But more importantly demonstrated MRU. I must qualify that my lack of creating a picture with my words is I am on antibiotics and I wrote my paragraph on day 4 while sinus pain the size of a boulder was pressing against my cheeks and forehead. And my son has been using MRU and the Snowflake Method for years. I'm a newbie.

I have revised to fit my story. You can see below. 

Staring, but not really seeing anything, Rebel Tyler wondered if she could call the whole thing off. She still had time. She was certain Madame Eve could find her date, and she used that term loosely someone else. But then she remembered she had no phone and other than room service there would be no contact with Cayo Espanto, as she’d requested, until Monday. So focusing on the here and now, she let go of those thoughts. Letting her eyes drift along the horizon where blue sky met blue green water she searched her surroundings. Palm trees and lush green forest were to her right. In front and to her left was the ocean. Waves gently lapped against the shore and rocks placed at the edge of the sandy pathway, signaling the end of the island.

. . . . . . . . . 

Taking a deep breath to calm her racing pulse, Rebel hesitated slightly before pushing the door wide. She stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Her accommodations were made up of just two rooms; the bedroom directly in front of her and bath to her right. Looking around the room, she immediately noticed the colors outside continued inside. There was pristine teak flooring, wood paneled walls and tongue and groove ceiling above exposed beams. Another glass door trimmed in turquoise, like the one she’d just opened stood opposite her; the windows were in the same style. Her eyes traveled to her right, taking in cream furniture, a matching plush rug and silk shears. The color broke up the variant shades of brown and turquoise, giving the room a soothing tropical feel.

Making to step into inside, Rebel froze and her heart skipped a beat upon seeing the monstrosity posing as a king sized bed along the left wall. Suddenly the spacious room felt cramped – like a fat clown stuffing himself into one of those tiny cars at the circus. Her wide eyes were riveted to the four poster metal bed, her breath caught in her throat, blood pumped through her veins roaring in her ears. When her chest constricted and ached, she realized she wasn’t breathing.

 . . . . . . . . . 

“Oh, God,” she moaned, squeezing her legs together. Her nipples pebbled and her sex became wet. Rebel closed her eyes, her thoughts dancing in a thousand directions. She tried to concentrate on what brought her to this place. Instead of dwelling on tonight. So she imagined her parents and Mr. Michaels waiting for her at brunch in the morning. She could picture them in her mind fidgeting impatiently in their seats, their expressions growing more and more angry as they realized she wasn’t coming. The image made her smile, if only slightly, but the thought of standing them up emboldened her to move. Filled once more with a singular intent she took a deep breath, wet her lips, and stepped purposefully across the threshold. 

I hope you see the MRU's. And take note of the editing process. Hopefully this story will be out by the New Year and you can read it in its entirety then. 

See ya next week. 

Another Day . . .

So I've had trouble with my leading man. What woman hasn't had problems with the man she loves, or the one she's creating. (Wait are these two things separate)? So when sinus pressure like stabbing sticks pricked my face all yesterday and my face felt like a swollen balloon I once again worked on my craft.

I'm sure you're asking what craft is that. Well I am a writer, and yes I'm in the middle of another short story. I hope to sell this one to Decadent Publishing for one of their popular story lines, but again I'm getting off track. So when no ideas came to me yesterday, I worked on developing my male character.

I thought of actors that had the same qualities I'm giving my leading man, but since I've pictured my guy looking like a slightly older Alex Pettyfer, (my character's name is Alex, and I swear it was a coincidence). I've had trouble putting the personality traits with the face.

So yesterday I went hunting. My son, a Technical Architect, (it's hard to explain what he does with computers, but he designs software, tells others how to build what he's designed, builds software as well, and implements what he's built). Anyway, he is also a writer. So over the weekend we discussed motivation reaction units (MRU) in connection with his latest novel. It's concept developed by Dwight Swain has been around for decades. We all strive to write using motivation reaction units, but many times we fall short. So my son and I went over the basics during the weekend, and I realized many times I'm not using MRU's properly.

I have dyslexia and my form has me rearranging sentences. Instead of giving the emotion before the action I put it after. I don't have problems with comprehension and reading, but as a child I wrote from right to left and and transposed the first letter in words when I spoke. For instance If I wanted a little bit of something then I would ask for a bittle lit. With this gift I can read upside down almost as well as I can right side up.

I know you're asking yourself when am I going to get to the point? I am a writer you know and we like to to hear ourselves talk, so stick with me. Well it seems Swain with his MRU concept hit upon the fact that if you follow this motivation reaction unit your writing would get to the point that you'd sell a lot of books. Bottom line, that's why I'm here. For readers to like my stories, want purchase my stories and hook them from the first sentence in chapter 1 so they can't put my book down until they've read it through.

I'm the kind of person that goes back and rereads books. I want my readers to want to do the same for my stories. Sorry, I'm getting off my topic again. While I was studying the model I came across the website, Writing the Perfect Scene by Randy Ingermanson. (If you want to read a website that is informative and the author is really full of himself then I suggest you look it up). He actually does know what he's talking about.

While there I checked out a few things and I must say he broke down MRU's quite thoroughly and if you're looking for good information on motivation reaction units then I suggest you check out his website. But MRU's isn't where I found information to help me with my leading man. I clicked on the link Architecting Your Novel. It describes the Snowflake Method.

I've used only part of the Snowflake Method in the past, but I took a long look at it yesterday. I really am coming to my point, so stick with me. I began using steps 2-5 on Ingermanson's website to develop my male character. And it worked. I know more about him today than I did in the last month of writing. Possibly more than I know about my own husband, ha ha, wink wink.

Here I must confess I'm a write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person. It is the way I create. I write on the computer, I have notebooks lying around the house and I have printed pages of my stories scattered everywhere marked up to the hilt.

It is a lot of work to write the way I do. It is a lot of work editing the way I do. So for once I'm going to implement sound advice and plan better. Yesterday as I planned this upcoming story using both MRU and the Snowflake Method I found it didn't hamper my creativity, it enhanced it.

So I'm off to write and I hope soon you'll see my next short story being sold by Decadent Publishing.

It isn't always about me

Okay 99% of the time this blog is about me. Because I'm me, but let's face it there isn't always that much to write about, so today I'm reviewing a book by another author.

Let me bring you up to speed. Kallypso Masters has written a series called "Rescue Me". Right now there are four titles in the series. Each one is a stand alone book, but includes the main characters of the entire series.

I won't go into all the details because giving lots of plot summary and characterization may give it away for readers who haven't purchased the series. And let me tell you, when the ending is given away it sucks. I know. My husband tells me what's going to happen next and has given away more endings in movies we watch together than I can count. So, I'm not here to do that.

But let me give you an overview. The Rescue Series is set in Colorado. The main characters are ex-military. These men own a BDSM, or fetish club. A later book is a story about the lone female Marine in the bunch, but she doesn't own the club, so I won't get into logistics here about her. Their lives and relationships have so many flaws and junk to work out that none of them believe they are worthy of love.

Masters at Arms is the prequel to the Rescue Me series. It should be read first and readers are introduced to the characters that are in the Rescue Me series. We see their action during the military. We see their pain, both physical and mental fallout from war. Read this book with the understanding that it sets up the series and all the erotic scenes you're looking for are in the following books. (This book is a free download from Amazon).

In Nobody's Angel, Marc d'Alessio keeps women at bay afraid of intimacy (Note all the men feel this way, but Marc's stance is to refuse to become close to a woman again for fear of being hurt).

In Nobody's Hero the main character Adam Montague doesn't feel he deserves love because of his first marriage and his childhood.

Before I get into the latest book, I must say Kallypso Masters does a great job in the first three books. She delves into the BDSM lifestyle in different ways. If you're into the lifestyle or curious about BDSM then I believe you'll enjoy how it is depicted. The scenes are erotic and loving. Readers, however, don't get a lot of strict adherence to Dom/sub or Master/slave protocol. And none of the characters want a 24/7 Master/slave life.

Now for the latest book, Nobody's Perfect. This book is emotionally charged. You can read my short review on Amazon.com, but here I want to talk about the emotions evoked from the writing. While reading this book, I was on edged and by the time I put it down I was mentally and physically drained.

Kallypso did a great job and taking us into the broken lives of Savi and Damian and their struggles to repair their lives. We see them nine years later and they haven't done a good job actually living until they are thrown together again. Damian helps Savi heal from her own wounds and ends up being healed in the process.

The BDSM scenes in this story show the darker side. But I must say as a survivor of sex abuse, very short exposure to sex abuse, I can see the benefits of using scenes to heal. Kallypso used focus and communication as goals to work on. Once each scene was finished aftercare, something way overlooked in vanilla sex and at the very least kissing and cuddling should always be a part of what goes on after sex is over, no matter if it is vanilla or in the BDSM lifestyle. But I digress. Aftercare in the story was prominent and revolved around Savi talking about her abuse to lessen its power over her. Something every survivor of abuse, any type of abuse and those experiencing PTSD needs to do.

I won't give anymore away. I do recommend reading Rescue Me series. Oh, and 2 more books will be out later. So look for them.

Don't ya just hate it when . . .

Okay, so last week was a bust for writing. Truly last week was a bust for many things not just writing.

Think of the sinus infection from heck. You know the kind that makes you dizzy when standing. (Just because I'm a blonde doesn't mean I'm a ditsy blonde and that's the reason I couldn't put 2 sentences together last week). (Ha, ha) Going for a little humor here to lighten Monday up.

And when I wasn't suffering from sinus pressure that felt like ice picks stabbing me in the forehead, I was sympathetic to a sick husband passing kidney stones. (Ladies it's like giving birth, and men if you've had them you now know how a woman feels when having a baby). FYI he's still passing them. So this week isn't starting out any better.

But this week is a new week, and I'm eager to begin, but now all my ideas that I wrote down to work on this week, seem stale, weak in the oomph factor. I know fiction isn't truth, and really I should let some things go, but I still find myself wanting to stay as close to reality as possible in fiction. (Like for my next book, The Merger, the main characters are balking at an upcoming arranged marriage). I've got to make that as believable as possible.

Oh, well, what I guess I'm really saying is that we all have days and weeks like mine. So for now I'm getting out of the house. A nice walk in the sunshine will do me good. Today is sunny with a light breeze and about 68 degrees. And it'll warm up my thought processes.

See ya in my books.  

Struggles of a newly published author

I'm new to publishing. Not new to writing. I've been writing since I was twelve years old. I've begun and edited countless stories, but never finished them. Now as a self published author, I can say I've published my first, well second book. My first book was published my Alma Mater; a short piece of fiction for my Master's thesis.

I must say, I'm happy to have the book finished and out on Amazon. But my idea of writing had always included working with a publishing company who would market my work for me. Now I'm not only the writer and editor I'm also the publisher and marketing department.

I understand with Kindle and Amazon's self publishing tools that the market has been saturated, and as voracious reader I've taken advantage of many of the free books on Kindle, I must say I've read books that most likely would never have caught a publisher's attention.

There is good talent out there. Not all will go on to be best sellers, and I include myself in that category. I believe I'll do well as an author, but let's face it, I know I'm not John Grisham or Nora Roberts. But I am a good writer and can tell a good story. So check out my work.

But I digress. Marketing my book is one of the hardest things I've had to do. I write so I can hide behind characters and not have to sell myself. But here I am talking about me as a person, a writer. So far it isn't that bad, and I'm sure I'll get better as time goes on.

So bear with me. Take the time to find my book and look for more stories soon.

Oh, and I'll be back to confess my struggles in my blog.