When Good Ideas go Bad and Then Good Again

Our theme this month has been about how the best ideas can go bad and because this month has an extra Friday, I get to go again!

I’ve had my fair share of ‘The Best Book Idea Ever!’ turning into ‘What the Hell was I thinking??’. Sometimes it’s been the plot, sometimes the characters, even extenuating circumstances (aka real life) but, in reality, it’s all me. They’re my ideas and, whoa Nellie, if they don’t turn out then who can I blame but myself? But it's not the end of the world, or even the end of the story.

Here’s a “for instance.”

In early 2012 Ellora’s Cave put out their list of sub calls, one of which was for tattoo themed books. I came up with an idea for four linked fantasy books revolving around the Midnight Café, a tattoo parlor in the world beyond the Veil, where all the characters of myth and legends reside. They were to be short novellas, and I had just over a month to get them written. I could do it. I was sure of it. I told my family I’d be pretty much unavailable for the next six weeks and hunkered down.

Then, in February our son Tom was in a horrendous auto accident* and everything, of course, got shoved aside. Thank heavens although he was terribly hurt we were assured he would eventually make a full recovery. And despite not having much time, I found writing therapeutic and actually cranked out two of the three novellas I’d planned, Fleeing Fate and Stone-Hard Passion, and they were released as part of the Pricked series.

Fast forward to June and things have settled down. I pull out the outline for book three and decide to get on with it. The plot involves a dragon shifter and Lady Luck, who’s a Fey woman. I write, hit delete, write some more, delete some more. It’s like pulling teeth. By now I think I must have been on crack when I decided this story had legs. Then it stuck me…The Fey woman actually should be a Fey man…

HA! I won’t claim the book flowed, because I struggled to get it finished—real life again—but once I got that point worked out, I knew exactly how the book was to go and Dragon's Claim, book three in my Unveiled Seductions series came to life.

So, for me I’ve found sometimes it’s a matter of finding the stumbling block and tearing through it to turn a bad idea into something I can love.

*My son Tom’s accident was caused by his Type One Diabetes, which he’s had since he was four years old. In a rush to get to work one morning, running late, he fixed himself breakfast to go and jumped into his car. Unfortunately he didn’t eat quickly enough and his blood sugar dropped. He doesn’t remember anything about what happened next, but the end result was the accident.

They don’t know what causes Type One Diabetes and there is no cure. Every year the Brenda Novak Auction raises funds for research into Type One Diabetes and it is an awesome way to help, as well as get some wicked deals on all kinds of cool stuff. By the time you read this the auction may be over for this year (May 31^st is the last day) but if not, go and take a look and get a last minute deal. If it’s too late this year, make sure to check it out next year!

Building a Book, One World at a Time

I think any author sitting down to write fiction is automatically doing some level of world-building. Contemporary authors are creating towns or businesses or situations for their characters, historical authors are trying to decipher the past and envision how things were then so as to decide whether their characters’ situations fit. Every author who does it well, I think, deserves kudos just for maintaining cohesion in the world they’ve created from the start to the end of a book!

But when it comes to world-building, I really take my hat off to the Sci-Fi and fantasy writers who create entire worlds from the ground up, fleshing them out with people, countries or planets, customs, etc., sucking us into places so real we half-expect to look up from the book and actually be there. In the past, memories of how the masters tackled the task pretty much kept me away from dipping my toes in the romance fantasy or sci-fi pools. I just wasn’t sure I could get it right.

Then I had a visit from a Plot Monkey…

Well, it was more like a herd of the damn things, flying around in my head and making a blasted nuisance of themselves. Before I could explain to them I already had my next book started, they’d forced me to do a blurb for a Steampunk book. Putting it aside, I went back to the job at hand, almost, but not quite, forgetting about it.

And it might have stayed in stasis indefinitely if not for a pitch contest I entered with that blurb, where I kept advancing to the next round, forcing me to write first a full synopsis and one chapter, then three chapters, all on a time limit. Then the editor said she’d really like to see the full. With the hope of breaking into a new publishing house as a goad, and a self-imposed due-by date, I had no choice but to just dive right in. The end result, Beyond Prudence, was released by Ellora’s Cave in September 2011.

I think it was that sense of needing to get it done quickly, with no time to fret over overstepping my abilities, that really opened me up to taking more chances. When the Plot Monkeys came again, forcing me to outline four books set in a parallel world to ours where all the beings we humans think of as mythological live, I didn’t hesitate.

It still scared me spitless, but with a crap-load of research and the encouragement of one of my critique partners, Amy Ruttan, I started the series. Sending the first book out to my editor was nerve-wracking. Suppose the thought of a West African storm god and a banshee just didn’t cut it? Suppose there were gaping holes in my world?

I’m happy to report my editor contracted that book, and the next one too, which features a troll and a jinn. And a series was born. Fleeing Fate, released July 4^th, 2012 as one of Ellora’s Cave’s Pricked tattoo themed books, is also Book One in my Unveiled Seductions series. Book Two, Stone-Hard Passion, was released on July 27^th.

The lesson for me was not to close the door on an idea, at least until I’d given it a really good effort. While my books are short in comparison to some in the mainstream fantasy genre, and therefore aren’t as intricate, I’m finding world-building rather addictive. I think I’ll keep at it for a while, just to see where it’ll lead!

Enjoying, but Maybe Over-analyzing?

So, this has been a banner month for me in many respects. Today marks the release of my second book this month, Stone-Hard Passion, book two in the Unveiled Seductions series. Book one, Fleeing Fate, came out at the beginning of July, and I’m really stoked!

It was also a banner month for me in relation to movies…I watched TWO! Yeah, okay, all the movie buffs that just read that probably fainted in horror, but for someone like me, who rarely watches movies, it’s a lot!

My husband finally got me to sit down with him and watch The Avengers. I enjoyed it thoroughly, all except the preamble, which consisted of my husband feeling that he had to explain every character to me. I shut him up by reminding him I grew up with an older brother, who was a fan of comics. I also reminded him that although I don’t watch a bunch of movies, I like to keep up-to-date on pop culture…who the heck doesn’t know who Iron Man, Thor, Nick Fury and the like are? And being a mythology buff, I probably had a better handle than most people on Loki’s possible character and issues.

One of the things that struck me when I was watching The Avengers was just how far special effects have come. Not that the effects overshadowed the movie. Instead they made the movie possible. Without them it would have been a cheesy rehash of one of the old comics rather than a believable altered-reality experience.

The other movie I saw was Magic Mike and, again, I enjoyed it thoroughly and more than just for that glimpse of Channing Tatum’s backside *blink, blink*. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it actually had a plot, the hero had a well-defined arc and the heroine stuck to her guns until the end. That last point, in particular, was a pleasant surprise. She disapproves of Mike’s lifestyle and the road he’s put her brother on, and she doesn’t allow the attraction she feels to make her lose sight of those facts.

To me the movie was truly made by the contrasts in the characters. Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas is the wheeler-dealer who never got out, and doesn’t want to. He knows this world, loves it, and believes it will make him rich. Channing Tatum’s character dreams of getting out. The stripping world has been good to him but it’s ultimately unfulfilling and he knows it can’t last. He also realizes it pigeon-holes him in the eyes of the world, and is smart enough to know that won’t change with time. Alex Pettyfer’s character is just getting in and he’s dazzled by the money, sex and drugs. The Kid gives us an all-too-familiar look at a life derailed by selfishness and a sense of entitlement. By the end I wanted to smack/throttle him, which was probably the writer’s intent.

There’s one thing I noticed, didn’t care for and was left wondering if anyone else did. While we all know the world depicted in the movie isn’t all bunnies and roses but a gritty, often dangerous place, there was, to me, a sly almost snide indictment of stripping and those who strip. I thought that aspect of it was overdone, but perhaps I’m being over-sensitive. I’ve never been a stripper (and I’m sure the public is suitably grateful for that fact!) but I know all kinds of people do all kinds of jobs to get by in life. As a slice-of-life vignette Magic Mike was unbalanced in favor of society’s often hypocritical condemnation of those involved in anything remotely sexual in nature. As an erotic romance writer, I find it rather offensive but maybe I’m over-analyzing. It would be interesting to hear if anyone else felt the same way!