Another Author

    I know I said I was going to write that double perspective short story, but I encountered one minor problem.  If you can count brainstorming another story idea as a problem.  
    As a writer, you'd think getting new ideas would be the greatest thing ever.  The problem with getting ideas is that you have to write down everything you can think of for the story as soon as possible, otherwise you'll forget.  And if you're like me and you forget an idea, it will probably haunt you until you die.  I've been busy and preoccupied, hence why I haven't been able to address the double perspective prompt yet.
    The other problem with getting a new idea, is that I haven't finished my old ideas yet.  I still have two and a half books left to write from my old idea, but now I want to get this new idea written too.  Oh, the chaos in my brain right now, but that's not what this blog post is about.
    In my little bit of time on Scribophile, I have read and critiqued the work of an author whose writing I have fallen in love with.  The author's name is H. L. Burke.  She has 6 books published on Amazon, and her 7th one will be released September 19th.  I helped critique one of her works, Beggar Magic, which will be available by the beginning of 2015.  Her writing is very clean and easily read.  It's meant for anyone like 10 and up.  Her ideas are brilliant, and I can't wait to read more of her work.  The series I'm dying to read is called The Dragon and the Scholar, and the first book is Dragon's Curse.

Perspective

    So I was flipping through pages of prompts in my new favorite book, 642 Things to Write About, when I found this prompt.

    And this got me thinking.  I was thinking of rehashing old high school drama to tell a story about how I thought someone else was the villain, when they thought I was the villain.  We don't normally view ourselves as a villain, because in our lives we are the protagonist working hard to overcome obstacles to get to our goals. However, in someone else's story we may be the antagonist or obstacle in the way of their goals.  

Discern

    Sorry I've kind of vanished for a while but life has been busy. Very busy.  But hey, the laundry is done and the apartment is clean.  And quite possibly a puppy may be on its way, but more about that later.

    I'm doing a quick post to tell you about the email I received today if anyone is interested.  Discern is the first book in the Katon University Series.  It was the novel that I beta read at the beginning of the month.  I talked about it in this post:
http://alysonbowen.blogspot.com/2014/08/reading-and-writing.html?m=0#.U_5-xEvuUpA

    For those readers who like fantasy and magic, I highly recommend this book.  It is clean, interesting, intense, and very different from anything I've read before.  So far it's only available as an ebook, but it is coming out in print very soon (I don't know exactly when).  Here's a link to order it on Amazon-
http://www.amazon.com/Discern-Katon-University-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00N1NZIKA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409186822&sr=8-1&keywords=discern+by+andrea+pearson

Free Write #4

    After a few days of a break from writing Rose, I started to slip back into my old EVIL habits of not focusing on writing at all.  Even though I was spending most of my time editing, my writing became incredibly rusty.  BAD ALYSON!!!!!  I started this blog so I wouldn't encounter these problems!!!  So in an effort to try and break out of my foggy laziness, I am doing a Free Write to try and get words flowing again.  This was incredibly hard to write.  I'm hoping to do one Free Write a week to keep me from slipping back into my bad habits of not writing.  So here is today's prompt:

    And here is what the sky looked like today:

Write, Write, Write.

    I realized I haven't posted any writing inspiration in a while, so for a quick post I decided to collect and post a bunch of quotes.  Life has been very different now that I'm officially halfway through Rose.  I've been sorting through lost of feedback and I've made definite improvements.  Tomorrow I'm going to take a break from anything writing because I get to spend the day in Salt Lake with Husband of Mine to celebrate our first anniversary.  We're going to see Wicked!  Anyway, I figured I should post one more time before the week is over, so here are some quotes to keep you writing.

Editing

    I figured I'd give a quick update.  I've been working at my computer like crazy the past few days sorting through ideas for edits on Rose.  Between my followers on Scribophile and Husband of Mine who finally decided to read it, I've made quite a few changes. Nothing major to the story line, but I've seriously altered how information is delivered.
    Let me tell you, editing is psychotic.  It's so ridiculously confusing.  Your mind is everywhere because you've thought up so many different ways to write things and you don't remember what you wrote and where you wrote it and you're piecing together all these ideas, unsure if you've repeated yourself a hundred times or if that information got cut.

    A friend told me, "Editing is like putting together a puzzle that somehow has both extra and missing pieces".  Never have I heard a truer statement.  Wow.  I'd probably add that you're also putting together this puzzle upside-down and with one eye closed.

Rose Ch. 14

    This is officially the last time I will post a chapter of Rose here.  I have hit the halfway point in the plot.  This chapter is a huge turning point for both characters.  Phillippe has already admitted to himself that he is in love with Rose, but she refuses to let herself have feelings for him.  In this chapter she has to make a decision about whether to put herself or her family first.  
    In other random news, it has officially been three months since I started this blog.  So far, I have written 24,332 words of Rose.  A novel is typically 50,000-100,000 words.  If this chapter is the halfway point, then I am right where I want to be for my novel.  But 24,332 words in just three months?  That is insane.
    I can't wait to continue with this book.  It has been so fun to share my writing with you.  I'll keep you readers updated on how my writing is going, and where I am with the book.  
    I also thought you might enjoy seeing how I worked on my descriptions for Rose and Phillippe's trip this chapter.  Now, for this chapter I had previously written a rough draft to get some help with some legality questions I had, and when everything got unofficially approved, I knew this chapter would need much more to give it the effect I wanted.  Then, I found this in my wonderful book 642 Things to Write About.

    Seriously, this book is amazing.  It has so many creativity boosting prompts.  If I can find the first draft of this chapter, I'll post it on here so you can spot the differences and understand why description is so vital to writing.  It made such a huge difference.  Anyway, here's the chapter.

Rose Ch. 13

    I am so excited to post this chapter because it means I can write the next one.  The next one is going to be AWESOME and it'll be the last chapter I post on here.  I hope my readers enjoy it because I am SO excited to write it.  I have been waiting for this chapter since I started the book almost three months ago.  I can't wait.  Although, I do feel bad that it will be the last chapter I post.  Anyway, you can all look forward to this chapter and the next.  Enjoy!

Forgot the translations link again!  Here it is!
http://alysonbowen.blogspot.com/2014/05/french-to-english-translations.html#.U-bO61ZcMpA

Rose

Chapter 13

     As the wineries eased their way into a brisk December, temperaments dropped with the temperature.  Attempting to relieve some tension, Phillippe had called up his fencing instructor so he finally had a reason to stay out of the house.  He was sweaty and exhausted.  Everything was becoming too much.  How had it all escalated so quickly?  Oh yeah, apparently it was his fault. 

     Then he got jabbed in the chest.

“Phillippe, are you even trying anymore?  I know you’re tired, but you need to focus!”

“I’m trying, Gilles.”

Scribophile

    So this week as I was writing and realizing that I don't get to share much more of Rose with you guys, I started to feel lonely.  I need a writer buddy who I can share all my stuff with and who will share their writing with me too.  
    I started Hypergraphia as a way to do that, but with no one really sharing their writing back, it's not working the same way it would if I had an actual group of writers, or even just a friend here in Provo to share with.  
    In an effort to fight off the loneliness, I started google searching to find writers in the area.  I didn't really find anything, but I did find this website called Scribophile.

    http://www.scribophile.com is a resource for writers everywhere to connect and share their writing for the purpose of getting feedback.  It works based on Karma points, where you earn Karma by critiquing writing, and you spend it by posting your own writing for feedback.  

Free Write #3

    As I said yesterday, I have been searching through prompt after prompt from my new book, 642 Things to Write About.  Some of the prompts are more specific while others are incredibly vague.  Here's one of the prompts I found and at first didn't think anything of it, but later as I was trying to find prompts specifically for Rose it jumped out at me.

    How completely vague.  But it got the wheels turning and I started planning a scene.  A scene I knew I needed to include somewhere, but I had no idea how I wanted to do it until I read that one word.  I thought I'd give you guys a look into my convoluted writing process by showing you the notes I took before I wrote the scene.  I had so many ideas to sort through as to how the scene would play out, but I hope it turns out just right to help the storyline progress.

Reading and Writing

    I spent the past couple of days working on a fun project.  I was asked to Beta read an upcoming book and offer feedback before it gets published next month.  Now, I haven't read any other books written by this author, but I was really excited for this opportunity and how it would help me with my writing.
    The author is Andrea Pearson (http://www.andreapearsonbooks.com) and she has self-published one series (The Kilenya Series) that consists of six books, one bestiary, and one additional story that takes place in the same world.  She has started work on her new series, Katon University, which consists of three novelettes and the  first book in the series that I was able to Beta read.  It is set to be published in early September.

    Now, this is an experience that I really appreciated and I would recommend to other aspiring authors to search for opportunities like this.  I learned so much about my own writing from reading what someone else is going to publish.  How I reacted to the reading not only showed how I read something, but how I write as well.  The advice I gave is something that I need to feed into my own writing.  I search for detail a lot more when I read, but I don't write it as well as I'd like.  I can't wait until Rose is to the point that I get to sort through feedback from my own Beta readers.

Rose Ch. 12

    It has been quite a while since I've written a chapter for Rose.  I don't know why this chapter was so difficult to write, but I finally finished and I am very happy with how it turned out.  I hope you guys enjoy it too.  The next two chapters will be the last I post until the book is finished.  That is where I'm assuming the halfway point is, but I won't know that until the book is finished. I will post updates about the book as it gets written, but hopefully it will get finished and published soon for those who want to know what happens to Phillippe and Rose.  For now, here's the next chapter.

Here's the link to the translations!
http://alysonbowen.blogspot.com/2014/05/french-to-english-translations.html#.U97yAVZcMpA

Rose

Chapter 12

After an uneventful Wednesday, Rose was laying in bed reading Le Collier de la Reine when her cell phone rang.  Because she rarely used it, she had to dig it out of her purse.  When she found it, she didn’t recognize the number but answered it anyway.  “Allô?”

“Excusez-moi, mademoiselle, but can you tell me what happened on 6 Juin, 1944?”

“Phillippe?”

“Just answer the question.”

She couldn’t hold back a laugh.  “Je suis désolée.  C’est le jour J.  Pourquoi?”