Fueling Up for the next big thing

Friends, my whelm has been a bit over.  In the past two weeks, I've launched one book, sent in the copyedits for another, and finished the draft of yet another.  And now I'm starting the process of drafting what's going to be a Big One-- PEOPLE OF THE CITY, which is technically a Maradaine Elite novel (i.e., starring Dayne and Jerinne), but in practice, this is the first Big Crossover.  And it's a LOT.

Right now I'm in that less-sexy, more data-driven part of things of making sure I have timelines and terms squared away, knowing I've got all the who's and what's and where's and when's locked down.  

This stuff requires fuel.

My big go-tos right now tend to be coffee in the morning and herbal teas in the afternoon and evening.  Add in apples, peanuts and granola, and I'm good to go.

And I'll need to be.  There's still a lot of work ahead.

No noms for me

My writing brain is a starveling. Also quite dramatic, apparently. I mean, really, brain: "pining with want"? Except yes, that's really the best description. I can't write if I am properly fed. Full belly equals sleepies and a complete lack of motivation. Plus also, my stories are about longing, right?

At any rate, when I'm fast-drafting or working up against a deadline, I exist on coffee and vodka and the occasional no-carb whatever, which often tastes like canned tuna or roasted almonds. It's probably a good thing for my long-term health that I don't get into these intense write-all-the-words-RIGHT-NOW situations. Though, I'll be honest, they are fun.

Know what's funner, though? Getting the thing done. Which usually involves a celebration. Which means food.

 You know that saying "I'll sleep when I'm dead"? My Writing Brain's version is "You can eat when you're done."

Food Post: Snacking while Writing

Confession: I'm nowhere near as virtuous as Jeffe and James. I am a snacker. Dinner often resembles multiple snack sessions, or maybe lunch continues into dinner as I snack through the food pyramid.

To whit, here are my Top Writerly Snacks by Food Pyramid Group:

1. Vegetables = Broccoli Tots w Cheese (Green Giant. Freezer section).
2. Fruit = Simple Mango Smoothie (Frozen mango chunks, splash of lemon juice, water/wine in a blender) 
3. Grains = Crackers, probably with cheese though hummus is nice too. 
4. Dairy = A pot of yogurt to keep all digestive parts working as designed. (Watch the sugars on this one; some yogurt brands have more sugar than ice cream.)
5. Meat = One-bite mini meatballs (usually in the freezer section, sometimes the butcher has them freshly made)
6. Fats & Oils = Spoonful of all natural nut butter (I like peanut or cashew. Again, watch the added sugars here or you might as well have a Reeses Cup.)
7. SUGAR: Dark Chocolate, bite-size (I like Dove's individual wrapped squares because chocolate-covered keys are nasty.)

Yes, coffee stands alone. It's is not a food group. It's a necessity. Kind of like bourbon. 🤣

Clean Hands, Healthy mind

I DO snack while I'm writing, Mostly I snack on dried things that are high in protein. Protein eliminates the hunger that can distract from writing. Most often it's dry roasted peanuts or roasted nuts of some kind because I'm a diabetic and have to watch the carbohydrate intake.
Also, I like to have clean hands, so nothing too fatty. I love popcorn, but it's damned messy when trying to type.


To wash it down there's always coffee, tea or water.

Okay, back to work. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines....

Hands on Keyboard, Butt out of Chair

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the deceptively simple "Perfect Writing Snacks."

I say it's deceptively simple because I'm going to have to pull a Veronica Scott this week and say that I just have nothing on this one.

I don't snack while I'm writing. Really, I don't snack much at all. The way I grew up, we pretty much just ate at mealtimes, maybe a nibble with drinks at cocktail hour. Also, my whole ethic is bent in the opposite direction. I don't snack while I write because it would interfere with my hands on the keyboard. It's also difficult to eat while walking, which is what I do while writing.

There's a saying a lot of writers pass around, that the way to get the words down is "Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard," or BICHOK. While I agree with the spirit of the saying, I don't like it because I'm not a fan of sitting. I walk while I write and it's been the most amazing thing for me.

I got my first treadmill desk in February of 2013, so over six years ago (wow!). Since that time, I've gotten so that I generally walk about 10 miles/day while writing. The trance-state induction of steady walking is amazing for writing flow, and the movement keeps my brain alert.

I have the same hydraulic desk, which I can raise and lower as I wish. I absolutely recommend that model. I'm on my second under-desk treadmill, which is about how it goes, since they do wear out.

If you listen to my podcast, First Cup of Coffee, you know that my current treadmill started tanking on me. The horrors! The folks at LifeSpan (I have this model) have been great and are sending me a new motor, since it's still under warranty. The techs come on Wednesday to install it and give the whole thing a tune-up.

Until then, I was deeply unsettled. I'm working hard on finishing THE FIERY CITADEL, sequel to September's THE ORCHID THRONE, and I need to walk to write!

Okay... maybe I don't NEED to, but I hate to mess with my process. I really do. And you all know that I'm always saying that the most important thing is that we own our process as writers, and that means doing what it takes to facilitate that process.

So, my hubs David suggested that we rig up something temporary on the running treadmill. (Yes, we're a two-treadmill household, but a walking desk treadmill needs a motor that runs well for long times at low speeds, which is not the same kind of motor that you need to run at faster speeds.) Thus, above, is my temporary workstation. Those are the leaves for expanding the dining room table across the handle bars, and the ever-useful bungee cord strapping on the laptop. I have a wireless keyboard I love for the key action, so that's nice and familiar.

There's even a glimpse of the book, for the clever reader.

I wouldn't use this system for long, but it works for now.

The Characters Are Owed No Apologies

Some weeks here I don’t like the topic so I do a spin on it, but this week I genuinely don’t get the topic: “Channeling JK Rowling: Any apologies due your readers for the way you treated a character?"

Is this about how she keeps coming up with new little nuggets about characters who have been established in readers’ minds for a long time now? From an online dictionary: RETCON: revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events.

That’s how some of the SFF7 members have interpreted the topic. Others have switched it up to whether they owe an apology to a character for how they were treated…

First of all, I never read a single Harry Potter book. It just wasn’t my thing. I saw the first movie once and it was enjoyable but didn’t leave me with a deep need to read the books or see the follow-on movies. Not all wonderfully created, deeply immersive fictional worlds are for everybody. I have kind of a high level vague cultural familiarity with Harry Potterworld and that’s it. Wands, a nifty train station, Voldemort, hat sorting... So J. K. Rowling can retcon to her heart’s content and it doesn’t affect me. I can see how it would be disconcerting to a person who was very fond of the books. No one wants their universe upended.

Second, I don’t introduce new information on my characters that undercuts or revises their actions or motives or whatever in earlier books. I might reveal new things about a character in a sequel but only as it applies to what’s going on in the sequel, not to put new light on what they did in book one. I might show how they've grown since the first book, as I did with Twilka in Wreck of the Nebula Dream and then Star Survivor. But she was a supporting character in Wreck.

Third, I can’t think of any character of mine that I’d owe an apology to. I mean, sure some people go through rough, scary times in the books and some people die (NOT the main characters, not ever) but I don’t know how I could write an action and adventure novel without placing characters in jeopardy. Problems come along with being in one of my novels but there’s always a Happy Ever After ending or at least a genuine Happy For Now.

And if I write a villainous person, they get what’s coming to them and again, why would I apologize?

So yeah, this topic of the week is really out there as far as I’m concerned and I have no more light to shed on it.

Here’s some news on my writing status I shared on my Facebook author page last week:

Finished the first draft of CAMRON, my next Badari Warriors novel, which will probably be released in mid to late May. Doing revisions now and then my editor gets it for 30 days. I'm excited about this one (well, I get excited about all of them LOL) and also about what I'm planning to write next for the Badari. Here's a teaser of the CAMRON cover...

Regrets

In the second book of the Enemy series (which now has an actual series name of Chronicles of the Empire) I ended the book on a tiny bit of a cliffhanger. Someone died. I got some anguished email over that one. But my real regret there is that it took so bloody damned long to get around to book three so I could solidify that cliff hanger. 

Beyond that, I have no major regrets over how I've treated characters. And this is probably where I will leave you because my parents moved in today. It is no longer possible to walk through the house without serious risk of bodily injury. So I'm gonna go risk minor bodily injury and go schlep furniture around into some semblance of order. And keep writing this series, wherein, I *might* do something for which I will have to apologize in a future blog post.

I'm truly sorry for killing a character you don't care about

There is an understood trust relationship between writers and their readers. Writers make story promises, and readers trust that those promises will be fulfilled. When writers fail to deliver what was promised, readers feel understandably betrayed.

I think I breached that trust, and I hate it. And I'm sorry.

Character death should always be meaningful and emotional and unavoidable. But I killed a secondary character in Perfect Gravity -- I won't spoil it and say who -- with no warning and without giving that character sufficient screen time in that particular story. It was a noob move and pretty awful.

Here's how it happened. I needed a particular character to die at a particular point in order to move several other character arcs where they needed to go in the next book, and to make the series arc work. However, I originally thought up the overall series as the ongoing adventures of Mari and Heron, with the sphere of secondary characters surrounding them. The character death at the end of Perfect Gravity would have meant something entirely different if Mari and Heron had been my POV characters at that point. But in between writing Wanted and Wired and Perfect Gravity, we decided to structure the series as presenting a new couple and their HEA in each book. So when we got to the character death I'm talking about, the people telling the story at that point weren't the people most invested, and the moment didn't have the emotional resonance that it really needed.

I still think Perfect Gravity is a solid book. It does hit some emotional highs and lows for the protagonists. Its ending does balance the HEA requirement of a romance with the darkness and uncertainty needed for the middle tale of a trilogy. 

But that one character -- and readers -- deserved better. I'm sorry for letting y'all down.