On Writing

 

Hot Tip of the Day

Never take up riding lessons when you have some serious writing to do. OUCH!

Naming Characters

Nieces and nephews do supply and an occasional name (my niece Jasmine was one of my first characters). It's a good thing, too, because I drive my crit partner crazy with the working names I pick. I once nearly named an alien "Skip". Poor Vicky, she said, "Why don't you just name him Irving or Harold?" He became Skye :} One historical heroine was called Ceylon--I happened to be looking at a tea box then. Her man was Uric after the guy from Knight's Tale. My editor didn't care--she still wanted to look at the manuscript, but she may have something to say when she sees another character called Dante Inferato.

Vicky's comment when she read it, "Really, Autumn." (Hanging my head.)

And then there was Darjeng, suspiciously close to Darljeeng. (Yes, I drink tea. You couldn't tell, right?)

She did draw the line at Anne Frank, thank God. Believe it or not, I wasn't even thinking when I typed that name in. All I wanted was a designation for a warm body.

Therein lies my problem. I'm writing. I don't want to bother with selecting a name. Sometimes I'm tempted to just name him X and her Y and just plug in a name later. Hm. Maybe I should do a contest on my web site where people suggest names *for* me and the winner gets a free book...

You just never know. If I don't, one of these days there might just be a Mortimer thrown in...

Ramboette Arch types

Ok, since too much serious stuff makes my nose bleed...

Ramboette archetypes--seen one lately?

I just can't write one, and I'll bet you can't, either. Now I'm not talking about mature, self-assured women. Not even those gun-toting types that can fly like a rocket or beat the bad guy to a bloody pulp. Those are my favorite, and I love to write them. What I mean is the woman who can beat her man at hand to hand combat or defeat him at any of the serious male stuff. I mean, ugh; what kind of sexy hero lets himself be beat up by a girl? I'm just not skilled enough to write a man my heroine can trounce and then desire.

So much for the theory of feminism.

That said, I enjoyed the movies G.I. Jane and Tomb Raider, but only as fantasy. In real life I don't want to qualify for the draft and get up at 5:00 am and march around in combat gear. I look bad in army green. And trust me--you don't want me anywhere near a gun before at least noon. For women who want to volunteer--go for it and I'll cheer you on, and thank you for doing a very tough job. Red, white and blue, this Bud's for you.

I love my baby's even temper and that he'd never dream of raising a hand against me, but I adore that he can pick a guy up with one hand in my defense and slam him up against a wall--and has. (Before you think it barbaric, consider that it was high school and the jerk in question was physically harassing a girl half his size. Nor did it happen in front of me. In fact it took two years before I even heard about it. Dreamy sigh. What a man.)

It might not have been the way I would have solved it, but man, was it effective. And that's the point. Men should be men, especially in fantasy. If it's going to be larger than life, our hero ought to be pretty impressive.

Reading Style

Maybe it's a matter of sprawlers vs.. those with good posture :) I rarely sit like a "normal" person, partly because I'm so short (I'm 5 ft in my socks).. My feet dangled on the school bus so I'd inevitably sit slouched with my knees braced on the back of next seat, most of the time with an open book in hand. If I'm on a couch I'm either prone or have my feet up. I've been known to type cross-legged for hours, partly because my office chair was too big. That changed once I got my new desk and was forced to sit properly, as the keyboard is positioned where it's supposed to be. I have platform shoes which sit under the desk at all times to keep my feet from dangling. Oddly enough, I walk with perfect posture, and my riding instructor says I have a 'natural straightness'. Go figure.

Diamond in the Rough

I love books and movies where the main character gets a makeover. Think of the appeal: when a shaggy pony hiding in the woods is coaxed out, buffed up, and Sha-zam! You have a shining stallion or a graceful filly. I don't think it's so much making a person beautiful as making them confident that appeals to me. Think of the courage it takes to come out of hiding and into the light.

I especially like when the hero/heroine ends up with the person who loved them before the change. I always feel certain that person will be better for them than the blind masses who couldn't see them shine before.

My husband is a shining example. Before I got a hold of him he was the hairiest guy in my gym class (as a senior he simply had all his masculine 'parts' more developed than the hairless boys and cover models I was accustomed to seeing. As an adult I'm much more appreciative of these things). The guy wore a khaki trench coat, a tuff of whiskers on his chin, John Lennon sunglass--when he wasn't wearing these awful squared things--was tattooed, and had a dyed blond Mohawk that reached to his shoulders when down. It took a can of hair spray to get it to stand. (He lay his hair out on a table, had his brother spray it and then peeled it from the table with a spatula. I understand these days that they use hair glue.)

Sure, he was nice enough, but not high on my dream date list. And then it happened.

We were in the weight room, doing our thing, and I saw him take off his glasses to rub his eyes. My jaw dropped. He had the most gorgeous eyes...

I snapped my jaw shut and quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed. It felt like a veil had been lifted from my sight. Suddenly I saw him in a whole new light. Noticed things like the fit of his jeans, his firm...well, you get the idea. And what do you know, his girlfriend had dumped him not long before, and he asked me for my number. With a shave and a haircut, the boy cleaned up beyond my wildest dreams.

A diamond in the rough story. Can't get enough of them. Now if only stories came to me on demand...

Personal Themes

>Autumn, I was just checking out your web site again, and this may be the
first time I've read all your blurbs at once. It seems your personal theme
is abduction. Care to elaborate? <g> Natilie

It's not that mysterious, really. I'm home all day with three kids ages 5, 3 and 2. Need I say more?

My later themes are different. In The Woman Inside she was an ugly girl who suddenly became a beauty. The men who shunned her before now pant after her, and it's made her jaded. She wants passion from the heart. Since I've been through that painful ugly duckling phase I can relate. I want to be loved for what's inside of me; a very rare thing.

The hero, Uric, is struggling to overcome the physiological bonds of an abusive mother. He has a strong protective, loyal streak and has been played by her since childhood. It's a classic "wants to love her, hates her" thing, inspired by the book, Little Boy Lost, which broke my heart. The thread is subtle, though, and I infuse humor into the story to lighten it up. Ceylon coming along is the trigger for resolving the issue for him. He has to chose one woman or the other, and suffers the emotional repercussions of his choice for some time.

The sequel to The Woman Inside is called, The Other Woman. It's got a strong woman fighting against admitting her emotional needs. And then there's Bad Moon Rising. That one was sheer fun to write, a great break from more emotional stuff.

I usually do one escapist book and then an intense book to keep me fresh/give me a break from a series. Usually it takes three or four months to complete a novel.

Kitchen Table Brain Surgery

Ah, yes. Writing is so easy. Anyone can do it. Of course, we all know that everyone can cook, too. The difference is, some of us actually produce something edible.

The Writer And the Web site

The program I used to create my first web site was Microsoft Picture It! Publishing 2000. Came installed on my computer, along with Windows XP. It sucks. Hard to manipulate if you're trying to put lots of interesting content on it, likes to jam for no reason, hard to manipulate text and pictures and no frames or tables. The pages don't cover the entire screen and picture editing is limited. The pages are also short, making posting long excerpts difficult.

However, if you're a kid or a web site virgin, it's a way to get your feet wet. It does the job if you're willing to fight with it, plus has some neat sound and button effects. The learning curve is low. If you're not picky, just want to throw some info up for public access, go for it.

Web site #2 was initially designed in WordPerfect and saved as web pages. This allowed me to work in a familiar, friendly atmosphere with low intimidation factor, plus allowed me to learn the ins and outs of frames and tables, hyperlinks. The downside: couldn't figure out how to get my web site from there to the web, except by laborious file by file transport via my FTP program. I needed something more convenient. Enter a friend who'd seen a copy of Dreamweaver (macromedia Studio MX with Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Freehand) on campus for the smashing price of $189. Possessed by a sudden shopping fever and the desire to make my life easier, I bought it. Ha! If only I had known.

30 hours and a snooze later, red-eyed and woozy, I uploaded my Dreamweaver web site for the first time. Then the second, and so forth...FTP came in handy at this point as tried to figure out why the new site wasn't loading properly (I hadn't stuffed in in the WWW folder--how silly of me). And then there was the debacle as I tried to rename the start page INDEX so it would load properly. After intense muttering, I figured out how, then had to change all my links. Oh, and there were the dozen or so times I accidentally deleted a page I was working on. It is not, as Sharron so gently puts it, intuitive. However, it's a lot cheaper in the long term (at that price) than hiring someone else to do my web pages and I like having the control over the site, updating it at will. There's also a certain satisfaction in learning something new and mastering a complex program. And I admit, I've been drooling over some of the flash intro to certain sites. It'd be fun to learn all that.

Last but not least, if I ever need a second job, it's a good skill to have. After all, there's a reason they call us starving artists...