Imaginary Friends

I've been reading another writer's blog lately... an author with two major series and I own almost all of them in paperback though I do prefer one series over the other. For some reason it didn't occur to me until recently to go looking for her website but I'm glad I did. She's been doing the blog thing about five years now and talks a lot about writing the books I've read and it helps me in putting pieces together.

The postings I've been reading today are from 2005 and she's talking about her imaginary friends. They are the characters in her books. One of the two series is past book 15 now... I wasn't sure a single author could do that until I saw hers and started looking around more. There are just far too many books out there that I like so I don't actually stick with a series for long. She's only the second author I've done that with.

Imaginary friends caught my train of thought on my own writing. I said once before that the writing started as something of a solace for me... I was making up the friends I was too shy to make in real life when I was a child. These hundreds (yes that's accurate) of people I've thought up have been fleshing themselves out for a long time. Then I realize it's not actually hundreds... many are the same person under a different name with a different piece of their personality. Take, for example, the Ben character I'm trying to rename. He has actually shown up before. Once he was a playboy werewolf named Patrick... still one of my favorites. He was also Julien, the Regency era lord with a mysterious past. I never did get around to figuring out that past. He was also Lucas, son of a war god and human priestess who came up against one of my more argumentative heroines. The Lucas story got further than most others but I ran into problems with my villain. He just wouldn't come out of the shadows and show me his flaw. The story stalled out there. Patrick never finished because I couldn't figure out how to get him past his prejudice against witches. Central to the plot and needs to be revisited.

So, four heroes who are essentially the same man. Different time periods and settings. What would happen if I merged them all into one place? Hmm...

Keep reading. Let me know if you have an author like my inspiration above.

SK

Names

I'm having issues with a name for a main character. Currently, he is Ben but it just doesn't seem to fit. He is a scary dude. He is tall, dark, brooding, and the ultimate in alpha male. He is the head of a politically powerful family and he wears that power well. Oh, he is one of the good guys for all his scariness. Ben just doesn't seem to be a strong enough name.

As I'm running through the mental catalog of names I've used I realize I have never used a name of someone in my immediate family. None of us have unusual names... rather common in fact. Several of my stories have settings that would be perfect for such names. It just doesn't feel right to use their names... almost taboo. Hmm.

Ben is one of several characters in my current mental obsession. As I said, he has political power and is extremely loyal to the powers that be. There has been a war, someone trying to overthrow those powers in the name of religion. Oh so many wars have been fought in our own history in the name of religion. During that war, Ben leads a contingent of his fellows in the clandestine side of any war. Their goal is to find any advantage for their own side.

They don't just appear out of thin air when this war breaks out. They leave others behind them as they go off to become heroes. When the war begins, Ben's father is head of the family. He dies shortly before the beginning of the current story. Like many of his compatriots, Ben also leaves behind a new bride. It's an arranged marriage and she is petrified of him though she doesn't want to show it. She is another character I'm fleshing out. So what happens when they see each other again after years apart? Ah, now that's just a little piece of this story.

For some reason, I keep picturing a dragon as I think about this story. Could Ben be a dragon?

Stay warm, everyone.

SK

Habits

Ah, the joys of nervous habits. I've always enjoyed rubbing it in to my sister that I never chewed on my fingernails like she did. My vanity says that's why she finally kicked that habit to the curb but I did it more as the little sister tormenting the elder. Then there's two friends of mine who don't chew their fingernails... they chew their fingers. That has got to be far worse.

What about my nervous habits? I bite my lip. Perhaps it started from the day I decided to try not to hassle my sister. I have no idea but I do it and don't think about it until the pain reminds me. Yet, even as I'm typing about it here I find I am still doing it. Can't stop. So very odd.

Now why an I on about nervous habits when I should be on about writing? Another writer's blog I was reading this evening made me think about the habits and rituals every writer I've read about or spoken with have. When I force myself to think about writing, I bite my lip. When it's flowing nicely I don't. Since I decided to take this writing thing seriously, I've chewed my lower lip until I've drawn blood nearly daily. I am completely wigging myself out here and it shouldn't be that way.

So, as I end this blog I'm trying something I haven't done before... at least not for writing. I do meditate with the candles and instrumental music and all that. That's when a lot of my story ideas come to me. The music is on right now... a classical satellite station to start with but I think I'm going to switch to big band jazz. Louis Armstrong over Mozart at the moment. We'll see if starting this new habit works.

Off to the dark side for me. Keep up the reading, folks.

SK

Curses

The curse of my dream... my day job. I do like my day job but it's rather demanding. How does anyone expect me to spend 3 to 6 hours in meetings yet still work as well? Somehow, they do. One of my coworkers spends 2 or 3 hours every night online working from home. I refuse. I want my evenings for my dogs and my writing. But I'm so bloody tired it's hard to focus. Only getting to sit with my writing for a couple hours a night makes it really hard to keep an idea going.

So, I make notes tonight. History Channel has a show on about Vlad the Impaler. Interesting to me. I do feature vampires in some of my stories... heroes and villains. At the moment, I'm pondering what the result would be if someone were able to boil the blood within a vampire. For purposes of stories, magic could be made to do it but I wonder about a natural compound of some sort. My days of chemisty class are far behind so I'm having trouble with the memory. But I do cook fish with citric acid so I think it's possible. Research time, I believe.

And this is how story ideas hit me. Is it twisted that I watch such a show and ponder boiling the blood within the vampire? Some would say so, I'm certain, but I don't believe it. Seems a perfectly logical question to me.

No, I don't really write horror stories. When I was young, my father was watching the first two Friday the Thirteenth movies and didn't know I was curled up on the floor next to the couch where he couldn't see me. For two solid weeks I didn't sleep more than an hour at a shot after that. Horror movies and I don't get along. Horror books and I really don't get along... my imagination is far to active and graphic for that. Yet I have never seen vampires as terrifying. Just interesting to think about the possibilities.

I'm off to do that little bit of research while this tv show finishes. Then it's cuddle time with the hound dogs though they're already asleep on my bed. I'll have to bribe them off it to find room for myself. No protein bars for them, though.

SK

Beginnings

Everything has a beginning... right? Tonight I begin throwing my thoughts out to the world. Why? Heck, I ask myself that one. The only answer I can come up with is taking another step at trying to further my dream. Since I was a child (suffice it to say I am now an adult and have been for some time) I have been writing stories for myself. Usually it's just a scene or two... occasionally multiple chapters. For me it started as cathartic... a way to create friends I was too shy to go find in real life. Then it was because I ran out of interesting things to read. Now here I am with a book collection numbering in the hundreds and notebooks full of ideas numbering in the dozens. After several stuttering steps, I'm putting those ideas out for the world's acceptance or rejection.

Have I said yet that I don't like rejection? Might have something to do with why it has taken me so long.

So I am beginning here. I will be documenting my journey from random writer to published author (with any luck). My hope is that you'll enjoy the story snippets and character sketches I'll be posting out here. I would love to have some feedback... perhaps some inspiration... and to know others might want to read what I write.

Keep reading and if you see the webyeti, toss him a protein bar. He rarely attacks if fed.

SK