WRITING UPDATES
“Shift” is full steam ahead in edits! I decided to re-plot and re-write a lot of it because I’ve learned so much as a writer in the past year or so, and these changes feel so much more intriguing.
I tightened up the conflict, chopped subplots that didn’t really do it for my editor, added juicy intrigue, clarified tangled relationships, and added more focus on vampires. Because of course, vampires.
I’m really, really thrilled with these changes, and alternate between squealing in delight and cackling with glee as I write the new scenes.
You’re gonna love it!
PERSONAL PROJECTS
The past few years I wasn’t excited about gardening, but it has hit me hard this spring. So I made a greenhouse out of an Ikea cabinet, and will grow lettuce and a few other vegetables in it all year round. As one does.
The highlight of my day is waking up to find new seeds have sprouted, and see their cute little heads pop up and slowly open teeny, tiny leaves. My dogs love to stick in their snoots to investigate too.
RECOMMENDATIONS
MUSIC
I’ve been fascinated by an artist called Sevdaliza for several years now, and she just came out with a new single “Maria Magdalena”. Her music is artful and gorgeous. Her music videos are just stunning, and I still rewatch them to this day! I’m in love with “Homunculus – Oh My God“, “Human“.
On the complete opposite of the spectrum, we have “Itty Bitty” by Ashnikko: a dancy, slut-tastic bop, and “Diamonds.v1” by Dounia, which is chill and smooth.
BOOKS
I finally read “The Spellshop” by Sarah Beth Durst. It’s a cozy, cottagecore fantasy featuring a bookstravert, and includes light romance, merhorses, jam, a sentient plant, small-town feels, and forbidden magic. I really enjoyed it, and read it in one night.
SHOWS
A short-film I found on Youtube, showing medieval warriors hunting down a vampire. It’s gothic JUICY, and everything I want in a vampire! They made this jewel just for a music video, but I would 100% watch this if it were a full film.
GAMES
“A Place For All My Books”, a board game for introverted book lovers! I’ve been hearing about this Kickstarter game in my bookish circles for months, and REALLY look forward to it coming out.
My Writing Process
Ideas
Ideas are cheap! And fun. The hard part is pulling yourself away from your darlings to figure out what actually has promise as a whole-ass story.
Planning
The part of the process I could happily live in forever. My process is to come up with a barebones outline of how it starts, the main meat of what happens, and how I imagine it ending. My favourite method/book to recommend to beginners is “Take Off Your Pants” by Libby Hawker. Pure gold.
Once the bones are down, I start filling in the empty bits until I have rough scene ideas. I envy writers who come up with brilliant characters from the get-go. Mine just kind of fall out of the sky and land in my story because I need someone to fill some blank spaces. Naming the characters is surprisingly difficult for me, and sometimes I go through an entire outline calling the characters ‘MC’ (Main Character), ‘ML’ (Male Lead), ‘BF’ (Best Friend), ‘Antagonist’ (this one’s hard to abbreviate).
Worldbuilding
At this point, I realize that I’ve made up a bunch of magic, societies and monsters kind of at random, and realize I need to nail down some rules in worldbuilding. I love worldbuilding. It makes me feel like a god in the same way certain custom character video games do.
The First Draft
No plan survives the enemy encounter, and writing is no different.
Do I have a plot? Yes, but I’m not going to stick to it.
Do I have characters? Yes, but I don’t remember what they’re called, so I’ll just rename them every chapter.
Worldbuilding? Sure, I worked on that, but I really need a thing to happen, so I’m just going to invent a new rule at random and that’ll be a problem for future-Elise to fix. Best of luck, future-Elise!
I know a lot of writers struggle with first drafts, but it’s actually my favourite part. The first draft is where anything goes, and I can just fly free like a baby bird witch half-grown feathers.
Revision (aka Hell, aka my Nemesis)
Playtime is over, and editing is where I have to roll up my sleeves and WORK. Ugh.
To me, editing feels like the sound of a thousand cats yowling in unison. I love coming across parts of my manuscript that just flow real nice, but I also find parts where I seriously question if I’m meant to be a writer… and sometimes question if I’m actually alright as like, a person LOL.
The first thing I do is rewrite the novel. It sounds like a joke, but kinda isn’t. This book (”Shift”) has been a hard lesson on ‘writing random things to add action’ vs ‘writing conflict that forced my characters to problem solve and evolve’. At least I’ve learned my lesson, and the next books will be a little easier, faster, and more fun to write.
Anyway, I do my best to make sense of the mess, then toss the whole thing to my editor (I’d like to formally apologize to her right now: thank you for your sacrifices, Lacey). She makes notes on everything that’s good and bad, then tosses it back to me. We just kind of play hot potato with the manuscript until the story stops being a burning mess of a dumpster fire, and something more like an actual novel.
And then I publish it.
I wish I could say I only publish when it’s a masterpiece, but I have perfectionist issues and can’t afford to spend decades trying to make werewolf novels into stunning models of literary genius. I can, however, promise that my books are written and edited to the very best of my abilities, and those abilities get better with each book.