So I decided to break out of my comfort zone (and I had 30 seconds of free time burning a hole in my pocket) to take a writing workshop. It’s all about finding your voice as a writer, which I was intrigued by. Assignment 1 is to ID the primary things in your writing. My themes are:
1. don’t fight the feeling
2. sex has consequences
3. good triumphs over evil
4. opposites attract
5. it’s never too late
#2 is a biggie. I’ve been reading a lot of Suzanne Brockmann and I love that in her books every sex scene either involves a condom, or the characters wind up having a discussion afterward about the potential implications. I don’t think that happens enough in the real world, let alone in novels.
OK not completely, 100% finished, but my first draft is done. I actually #$(*ing finished the first draft of my novel. It needs serious reworking, and then it will probably need to be reworked some more, but I somehow managed since xmas to have written 108,000 words and I have to be honest, I don’t think it’s all that bad. People might actually want to read this thing one of these days. 😛
When he closed the door behind both of them, he noticed the humor hadn’t left Lee’s face. “OK, what?”
“Nothing, ” Lee replied as he dropped into a chair. His conversational tone feigned innocence. “It’s just that usually when I smell blood and sex wafting towards me, the individual on the other end is in a much better mood than you are right now.”
Thad pointed an irate finger at him. “Don’t start with me.”
From King of Darkness by Elisabeth Staab
OK, let’s see what we have here. Whoa, get a load of that. What size is she, did she say a medium? I think she’s a medium. I sure hope so because if I get it wrong, I’m screwed. Too large and she’s insulted, too small and she thinks I want her to lose weight. Geeze! Thirty dollars for a scrap of fabric held together by a prayer and some glittery thread? What the hell do you do with this? What do you even call that color, gunmetal? See this I like, but she might think it’s too slutty. I don’t want her to think I’m going for slutty, but if I get something too conservative she might think it’s boring. Should I get a saleswoman? I should get a sales woman. No, no. If I get a saleswoman she’ll railroad me into buying like five hundred dollars worth of lingerie that for all I know will never get worn. Oh, $#!% here comes one now. Maybe I should just get a gift certificate…
Kevin Tai is a former employee of my husband’s. He used to do this cool thing on Instant Messenger where he’d put quotes each day, blurbs he’d written himself in an old-school detective novel kind of style. Apparently enough people told him it was awesome that he decided to start a blog: http://kissing-bullets.blogspot.com/.
Frankly, I’m not even a huge fan of the genre and I find it to a be a delightful read. We’re all hoping he writes a book one of these days.