Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Untitled

I have never been really great about sharing my thoughts with those closest to me for fear that it wasn't what was expected of me or perfect.  Instead I locked them up in my head or notebooks that were for only me to see.  I have found that this hasn't been the most effective way of dealing with things.  This blog has become like a very small window, if that's what you would like to call it, to what I'm thinking.  Although it hasn't been the most consistent, its about as consistent that anyone could expect from a consistently inconsistent person like me.  It's more than I would be willing to say to anyone face to face.

Tonight, I was going through a few things that I had written about my book.  (Yes, the same one that I'm pretty sure you all have thought that I have forgotten, but have not.  I promise!  It's still a work in progress.)  I wrote this after I finished my book and although it seems to have a few spoilers, it says a lot about what it took for me to get it on paper to the typed version.

August 21, 2009

Six and half years, a dozen notebooks and 3 written drafts later, I finally finished my book earlier today.  The closer I got to that point, the nervous I became.  I'm not sure if its the fact that this was something that I could always come back to or what, but when I wrote that last sentence that all went out the window.  I was finally done getting my thoughts on paper, slowing bringing each of the characters to life.  When the characters moods changed, so did mine.  I never really understood that until I really got into this.  I was asked how much of me was in the main character and I didn't realize how alike and different we were until I started flipping though the book.  I didn't want her to be too much like me, but I wanted to make her human, someone that anyone could relate to.  It was the same thing with the other characters.  There were times that I hated the two main characters, on separate occasions of course, but at the end, they couldn't have been anymore perfect.  They were both people that if they were real, I would have loved to meet.  In a way, I felt the same way about the villain, William Carson.  As much mayhem he caused, anyone could tell that when he was committed, there was no turning back.  Also, that he loved Devyn with all of his heart.  This was completely evident in the end.  This was one of the harder parts to write because this was the scene where she finally gets her answers before saying good bye to a man who had been such a big part in her life.  A part of me wanted her to walk away during the dinner scene, but it would seem too "big-screenish" and I really didn't want that.  I wanted her to be civil and calm.  She could fall apart at the end.  While I was rewriting this, I realized that a good chunk of what I wrote was unnecessary and could make any reader lose focus, something that I don't want.  The scenes that seemed the shortest in written form were the ones that I expanded on, since these were "more crucial" to the story than the drawn out scenes that were pretty much useless.

Now that I'm finally done, I can now say that I finally finished my book.  Am I proud of my work this far? Of course I am!  That's the only reason why I wrote this in the first place.  So to me, congratulations!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Random Thoughts

I was getting ready to call it a night when it hit me where I got my asshole characters from.  Anyone who really knows anything about me knows that I worked at McDonalds for three years before I came back to Lansing to work for the State of Michigan.  There, I worked with many kinds of people that I sometimes wish that I had never met.... a couple of them are still friends of mine to this day.

During this time, I worked with 2 guys named Steve and Jason (their names have been changed, but you get the idea).  Steve was a true asshole through and through.  He believed that women were less than nothing and were only put on this earth to serve men.  Evidently, he had an issue with the current work situation since most of the managers at the time women, so he didn't last long.  Let's just say that he wasn't fond of me. 

Jason, who I had been on talking terms with for a good portion of the time he worked at McDonalds, was a little different.  He was pretty hostile, while, at various times, was very dependent on others around him.  Getting to the point, he tended to have more of an issue with the women at this place of business.  Me included.  Unfortunately for him, I wasn't afraid of him and didn't back down when we got into heated arguments.  For Jason, it was his stubbornness, inability to admit when he was wrong and disrespectful nature that got him in a great deal of trouble.

What I'm getting at is that Jason is Terry's character in my book and Steve is Brian, the real troublemaker. 

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Month and Some Hiatus

Last month, after butchering my last draft of my book, I decided that it was time for a mini break from working on my book.  It was definitely harder than I thought it would be.  There were times that I would be home thinking that I needed to be working on a few chapters while things were quiet or if I was wide awake after taking a very unnecessary long nap after working.  I would even opened it up while I was at work while I was waiting on one document before I could call it a day after everyone else left to avoid being royally pissed off that I was still there.  In the back of my mind, I knew this was going against the promise that I made to myself to take a break, so I quickly closed it.


During this time, I felt like I had abandoned my "child" when it needed me.  Maybe that was the whole point of the break though. 

So, now that my mini hiatus is over, the plan is to read through it before I do any cutting and rewriting.  It's good to be back though.