Eden Ashe

Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

…or take your time. I know authors who prefer to write at an insane pace to get the story out and finished, then will go back and edit it until it sparkles. And I know authors who take their time with every scene, until it’s as perfect as they can make it before they move on. I know there’s no ‘right’ way. I always kind of thought it was like telling an artist who used charcoals that they’re wrong, and should be using oil paint instead. My problem isn’t how other people write. My problem is finding what works for me. Because honestly, I have no idea.

The husband just wants me to write if that’s what I want to do. My sisters just want me to push to get something submitted. A friend that doesn’t care how quickly I write, as long as I write every day. And friends that love what I’m creating and can’t wait to read more. I’ve found that NaNoWriMo speed doesn’t work for me anymore. I wish it did, but apparently, I’ve learned too much about writing in the last five years, and I no longer know how to turn that internal editor off. I have plot points I have to hit now–character development traits I have to start threading in, plus things like internal and external conflict, quirks that make the characters unique, faults to make them human, strengths to make them the only person in the world the other could ever want or need. More than anything, I want people to read my work and love my characters, my worlds, as much as I do. That’s my only goal in writing.

My problem is that every writer I know has a pace, a rhythm that works for them. So why am I having such a hard time finding one that works for me? And why do I obsess about this, when all I want to be doing is telling my stories?

…of NaNoWriMo 2010.  The concept is simple: 50,000 words in 30 days. That means turning off the stupid internal editor and just writing. Bad words, awful grammar, incoherent sentences, mind-boggling ramblings, and all.  It means sitting at your computer and worrying about nothing story-wise other than just hitting your 1,667 daily word count goal.

This used to be a lot easier for me. Back in 2006 when I signed up for the first time, I was still relatively new to writing and frankly, the thought of editing even a single sentence was enough to make my brain hurt to the point of real, physical pain. So it was easy for me to just sit down with a new, wickedly cool idea and just write, while worrying about  nothing but getting Keeley and Luca to their happy ending.  It was frustrating, but so much fun, and Here With Me was born. I finished my 50,000 words with fifteen minutes to spare, I had the entire novel done by the end of that December, and I still consider it the best thing I’ve ever written. So it seems fitting that for this years NaNo, I would come full circle.

It’s not that easy for me anymore. I don’t have nice, normal characters who live in a nice, normal world anymore. While this current couple, Kian and Isabel, may have started life as Luca and Keeley, their world is anything but nice and normal. In fact, to make their world and these male characters fit the way I need them too, I’m looking at building a world that is much darker than anything I’ve ever dreamed up, let alone attempted to create–and I am talking almost The Crow dark. Which if you know me, and you know how my brain works, it is not an easy fit. It’s actually a little terrifying, and more than a little worrying, and it leads me to keep asking myself if I’m attempting something that I’m just not capable of pulling off. I have an entire alternate Earth to create.  That means world building, and let’s face it. That is not one of my strengths. But that doesn’t mean I cannot do this, crisis of confidence aside. For as much credit and freedom as I give my characters, one of the biggest lessons I have learned since my first NaNo four years ago is that their lives, their worlds, their stories, are only as big as *I* allow them to be, and there is no such thing as a perfect first draft. Yes, I’m worried about the four books that will come after this one in the series, and I’m worried about writing myself into a box, or creating rules that fit these characters but totally DO NOT fit for Ty and Whitney, but that’s something else I’m learning: I have a–let’s face it–huge problem with over-thinking things, and if I let myself worry about all these little problems, I’ll never accomplish anything.

And that is totally, completely unacceptable.

Sigh. Okay, anyway, I need to stop rambling and actually go work. So if I go missing this month, blame it on my characters. Because for once, it really will be their fault.

~Eden

His name is Kian, and he’s making my life hell.  He started as a nice, normal hero three years ago, and then, a month ago, he decided to turn my world upside down. His story, Here With Me, was my very first NaNoWriMo experience and I still love his story. When I started it, he was a human hitman, and he finished the novel as a human hitman. However, I couldn’t get his brother, Micah, to fit into a normal human existance, and Micah is the eventual reason the Undying world was created. I needed a world that was big enough and dark enough to make Micah, and more importantly, his pixie Emma, work. So what turned Kian into a bastard? Oh, let me count the ways.

When I first wrote HWM, I was still in charge of the stories and the characters in my head. Micah and Emma (of course, right?) changed all of that. They refused to be one dimensional characters, their reasoning being if *I* didn’t know them and love them, how could I expect anyone else to? So I dove into the Undying world, and learned how to really make my characters as dark as I wanted them to be, until finally, Kian decided it was time for me to go back and edit his story. Only he didn’t want to be a human anymore. Oh no, that was too normal for him and, he declared, for me, as well, knowing I’d never be satisfied writing about nice, simple characters ever again. I really hate it when my characters know me better than I know them. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Anyway, once Kian decided I was where he wanted me, he made my head split open again because this time, he not only didn’t want to be human, he wanted to be something epic. Something huge, something not done in a romance novel  yet. Something that is going to seriously test my creativity and ability, and let them–he and his brothers and sisters–be exactly what I’d been wanting to do for years and never thought I could pull off.

No, I’m not going to tell you what they are. Not yet, anyway.

So what’s my problem with Kian? Well, he’s using his new-found power against me. Never mind that he’s the one who wanted the story darker, which was great in theory, but he doesn’t see why that should mean his Isabel is in more danger this time around. Oh no, if he could, he’d probably just skip the entire story and settle nice and comfy in bed with her, naked, for all 80,000 words.  So much does he not want me to put her in danger, EVER, that I can’t seem to write this chapter for them. It’s driving me nuts–no, it’s gone past that, and straight to me wanting to knock my head against the keyboard for awhile. It is seriously frustrating me, but I am determined not to give up. The story is done, it won’t take too much editing to make it fit into this new world, and I am determined to have it ready for submission within the next couple of months. I promised my crit group, and they’re right. The story is good, but it’s time to take my writing to the next level if I’m serious about it.

And I really, really want to be serious about it. That means I have to be stronger than my characters. It means shutting everyone else in my head up so I can concentrate on what I need to do, or none of them will ever have their stories told. Even stubborn bastard, pain-in-the-ass Kian Sorrow.

I took the summer off. It was mostly involuntary, and it seemed like the more stressed my life became, the more quiet the characters in my head went, even when I was nearly desperate for a distraction.  Emma was concerned enough that at various points over the summer, she threatened to do something drastic to make sure they were all still there.  Again, I know my relationship with my characters is unusual and might seem odd, but I am not used to quiet in my head. There is always someone plotting something, or planning, or just jabbering at me until I pay attention to them. Stories are always there, on the backburner, working out plot points or untangling threads until it’s clear and focused enough for me to see fully. There is always something going on in my head, and when it suddenly went silent, I didn’t know if I should be grateful…or alarmed.

I miss writing. I miss being creative and building a world and watching it, and the characters I love so much, come alive. I miss the frustrating joy of letting a story slowly come to life. I miss arguing with my stubborn, larger-than-life males, and I miss watching my heroines twist the brains of their heroes. There is so much fun for me in character and story development. Even when I feel like beating my head against the keyboard to knock something loose, or those times when I’m sure all my creativity has simply dried up and stopped existing, there is not a lot that I love more than writing. My daughters, my husband, my family…my writing.

So why, other than my abnormally silent characters, did I take the summer off? I think because I needed to. It has been a stressful summer for my family. I lost a cousin in a three-week ordeal that devastated all of those that I love most in the world, and I worried about the health of my grandparents through it all. Death is never easy, and it leaves a hole somewhere thinking about him not always being there in the background. But I guess that is how it should be. There have been other dramas, and there were definite times I was sure over the last two and a half months that I was sure I was headed for a nice, quiet, comfy padded cell. In fact, if I could have taken my laptop, and been assured of an internet connection, I might have volunteered, just for a small, mini vacation.

Luckily, things have seemed to have settled out over the last week or so, and my lovely, wonderful characters have taken to driving me nuts once again with all their demands and needs. I still have not settled on a story to work on, but there are ones that are already finished that need to be edited for submission, and I might focus my energy on that for awhile. My Undying characters are the loudest in my head for the moment, but they are the ones I have focused on the most for the last year, and did the most development on. I have other ideas for other stories, other series, other worlds that will eventually need attention, too, so who knows where I will go when I settle into the new school year’s schedule. 6AM comes very early when you don’t go to bed until 4:00, but I will find my rhythm soon.

In the mean time, I will start posting excerpts of my writing soon, and here is the link to the online publication of my very first short story. It’s called At Last. Hope you enjoy it, and check back again soon.

Eden

I am still working on my Undying novels. It is a wonderful feeling to have found a world for my characters to play in that fits them and lets them be the characters and heroes that I’ve always imagined them to be. There was always a significant age gap between the heroes and heroines that I couldn’t figure out, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine these men going to school and doing homework and having fun on a playground. That world just seemed foreign to them.

I guess I should explain my relationship with my characters before I go any further. While I admit that I have no idea what is normal and what is not, my characters are living, breathing people in my head. It wasn’t always like that and I fought for control and to make the stories I wrote come out the way that I wanted them to, but with my first romantic-suspense novel, Here With Me, my characters took over and because I had no choice about the matter, I let them.

It was magic.

It also opened up an entire world to me, and it came with characters that I have come to know and love beyond words.  I’ve even started giving life to my bad guys with the belief that the good guys, my Heroes, are only as good and bad-ass as my bad guys are bad. I’ve learned that by not wanting to hurt my characters, I was robbing them of their chance to fight and wage war and move the earth for the one they love. And I firmly believe that it is the heroine’s right to fight just as much as it is the heroes. They may fight for each other in different ways, but it’s her battle as much as it is his. They have to save each other.

By opening up my imagination this way, I have come across several characters that I know I will never be able to fully let go of, so I will continue finding other worlds, other stories, other lives for them, and I will have fun watching them fall in love all over again in different ways.

So as of right now, I am working on Chad and Rachel, one of my favorite Undying couples, though I admit their lack of internal conflict if worrying me a little. Shouldn’t there be something internal to keep them apart, as much as the external plot? I thought so, and it makes my head hurt a little that there’s not, but I am having fun with the story so I am just going to go with it for now, and worry about it if I have to later.