Teaser Tuesday: The Passage

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! 

My Teaser:

Peter looked at Amy. She was sitting on the sofa, her knees pressed protectively to her chest. He asked Alicia for her pistol.

"What for?"

"If we're going out there, Amy needs a weapon."

~ p.530, “The Passage” by Justin Cronin

Lovin' the Language Blogfest

Today I'm participating in my first blogfest.

Pick any five lines from one of your WIPs or share from something you LOVE.

As a recovering poet-perfectionist I'm finding it hard to just finish a first draft. Everyone tells me, "just make a note and move on. You can fix that later."
What? fix it later? And leave these glaring blemishes behind in my work? They're right of course. Since I'm never satisfied I know I can't finish a book that way.

This blogfest has given me a great excuse to to look back at the scenes that I love. It still isn't perfect but I have to be able to share my work if I'm ever going to consider myself a writer!

Love - Again

I know I might have seemed cynical about love (based on my earlier post) but I'm really a romantic. Plus reading all the entries from the Love All Year Long Contest has got me wanting to share the love too.

I love the passion of initial attraction and then the spiritual realization of so much more. I am going to share two scenes. The first one is from my WIP where the attraction is just budding. (it's a lot longer than 5 sentences but I just couldn't decide where to cut) Ex and Vee just had a mishap resulting in them sliding down a waterfall together.

My WIP

        The sun shone in Ex’s eyes but he didn’t blink or turn away. They were blue-grey, much like hers, with one difference she couldn’t see until now. In the center, circling close to the pupil was a golden star.
        “What happened?’ He panted. “Where did you come fro-”
        Vee pulled with her arms around his neck and put her lips to his.
        Ex jumped with surprise then moved his lips slowly to deepen the kiss. One hand found her damp auburn hair, the other lifted Vee, pulling her close.
        Her excitement from the fall intensified and her arms clung to his lean shoulders. Ex’s fingers were caught in tangles at the back of her head. His hold on her lower back tightened with each breath.





 

I'm going to share another scene just to show how elegant words can be. It's from one of my favourite books, "Ride the Laughing Wind". My mom used to make my dad read it to us when we'd go on long drives. The language is beautiful! This is the second (and best) type of love scene: spiritual, physical, and emotional connection. The realization of true love. (believe it or not, this one is actually five sentences.)

Ride the Laughing Wind

        Hawk smiled at her wide-eyed wonder, realized that he felt the same wonder himself, and suddenly they were together once again. How long they stood thus he could not say. Surely it was no more than a few seconds. Still, in that perverse way a man's mind has of working when it is completely nonplussed, he thought not of her words and of their meaning, not of the differences of their clans, but of the strange fire that was suddenly burning from deep within the frighteningly green depths of her eyes.
        Hawk had never seen that fire, could not yet know its meaning, and so he gazed, dumbfounded, as the woman who had taught him to love all others, and who had taught him almost all else of true importance, now suddenly and more than willingly shared her own great and personal love with him.

The Stars of the Show

When I first began the process of turning a very short play into a novel series the second thing I did was spend weeks just researching my characters - developing background, the physical features that go along with that, and personalities. (the first thing I did was spend two seconds deciding to switch from historical fantasy to contemporary fantasy). After having such a clear image of who these characters were and what they would do in certain situations I finally felt ready to write. I still haven't stopped obsessing over them, perfecting the details. To me the characters are more important than anything else.

Let me introduce you to my two POV's. They have very opposite personalities, so it'll be a project making sure the two voices are just that different. I love them already!

Vee

After changing my Vee model many times over the months I finally found one with the perfect features. Although being a model, Lisa Porter is way too tall.

Eyes: blue-grey
Hair: deep red. Thick and wavy
Height: 5'0"
Weight: 108 pounds
Heritage/ethnicity/original home: mountains of Ireland
Age appearance: with her youthful face and maturity people would guess anywhere between 16 and 28
Occupation: Doctor, herbalist
Affinity: Earth

Vee is passionate. Whether it's love or fury, she does it with intensity - or she used to. Years ago she lived with no regrets, but being in hiding for too long makes her feel numb. She's impulsive and likes the occasional date but any hint of commitment and she's off. It goes against her natural personality but Vee's been hurt before and she's not letting her emotional guard down again. Another reason to try to control her emotions is that her temper can do dangerous things when her abilities get involved.

Side Note: I know I'd be the first to comment on the overly done 'fiery redhead'. I swear I planned to write her as a brunette from France at first. Through researching her family and background it just made too much sense to fight it.

Ex

This is the closest I could find to Ex. I picture his chin a little slimmer. Supermodel Stan Jouk is probably too HOT to play Ex, although Ex is a cutie too.

Eyes: Steel-blue
Hair: Dark blonde, shaved
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 167 pounds
Heritage/ethnicity/original home: Sarmatian, Ukraine and southern Russia
Age appearance: about 22-26
Occupation: so far the clues point to hunter
Affinity: Sky

At the risk of sounding cliche I would describe Ex as the "strong, silent type". He keeps his thoughts and feelings bottled and tends to stay calm and collected most of the time, analyzing the situation. Ex loves deeply and is very loyal and trusting to those he cares about, trying to give the benefit of the doubt. Ex is a gentleman, considerate to the feelings of others. He is eager to learn and enjoys the beauty of what's around him.

Side Note: Okay he sounds too perfect and sweet. He has flaws too: claustrophobia (so he's not always calm), trusting to a fault, a little possessive since he's more the commitment type.


Does anyone else obsess like this about their characters?
Just thinking about these pictures - I wish I could get the models to come over and make weird faces for the camera.

Road Trip Wednesday #83: The Elevator Pitch

Road Trip Wednesdays look like fun so I thought I'd give today's a try.

You're re-reading one of your favs when someone asks the dreaded question: "What's that book about?" Give us your best off-the-cuff blurb of any book, any genre, and have your readers try to guess the title in the comments!

I wanted to pick one that wasn't TOO easy. Though I'm sure someone out there has read it.





So this historian guy saves this ancient princess from a bear and they go back in time. Apparently that means he'll be her husband and she doesn't really like him but marries him anyway. They had to leave because a witch is trying to kill them and go to the future, back to his time. The witch tries to kill them there too. Oh, and they fall in love eventually.


Haha, its funny to write it like that but that's probably how I would say it if put on the spot.

Anyone know what it is? Anyone? Anyone?

Surfing the Blog World and Transforming to a Different Kind of Writer

(That's me in Mexico. Not as cool as actual surfing, but at least I could stay on the board long enough for a picture)

For most of the people reading this I am new to the blogger world. My reason for starting this new blog is to renew my excitement for my W.I.P.. I love my story and the characters but I get distracted constantly. I've found that reading other writer's blogs helps me think about it in a new way and get motivated, even when it seems like the book is taking forever.

I've always been a writer. I'm sure you hear this from everyone. I used to take the creative writing duo-tangs they gave me in middle school and write way more than I had to. Short stories are so much fun! Then in high-school and university I daydreamed through my classes writing poems constantly. I liked doing this experiment where I would watch the teacher give the lesson and just write without thinking, all the words coming from my subconscious. Usually what came out were words my muscle memory was used to: the, and, whatever. The gibberish was weird but sometimes it read like a mad lib. The teachers thought I was overeager with note taking, or possessed.

My W.I.P. started as a one act play I wrote in University. I studied Fine Arts, mostly Drama.

(I was in the chorus of a production of H.M.S. Pinafore. I didn't take any pictures but here's an example from google.)

I wanted to be a play/screen writer and director. Now as I work on turning this story into a novel I realize it brings everything together. I get to create the background and plot and I can also direct on the page all the subtleties of how it will play out. I thought it would be easy to just transfer from one medium to another, but it feels like I'm starting from scratch.

As a stay at home mom I love the intellectual stimulation that it brings. Another thing I love to do is read as queries get torn apart. I used to critique and edit poetry and it's so similar. Every word has to count to create mood and get the point across, keeping it short.

As a side note - I want to thank Melanie for inspiring me to write a novel. She helped me realize that it wasn't impossible and could be fun.

To all the other bloggers out there I want to say - thank you for sharing.

Love Can Be Messy

This is one of my favourite songs. I think the video is perfect. Once you open up and become vulnerable suddenly everything becomes more real, and colourful, and messy.

(There are a few other videos in my playlist, although for official videos you have to go on youtube, it won't let blogger or mixpod post them.)

Writing

I've been thinking a lot about books, movies, fiction. Sometimes they all just mesh together, like its all the same story. Maybe the details like whether they're vampire, angel blooded, or just people is different, but why does the love story seem to repeat itself? It never looks like real life. In real life people don't often say what they're thinking. Sometimes people fall in love instantly, sometimes they grow on each other. They might not end up together or they might get married and then fight about stupid things. Sometimes people don't know how to treat the ones they love- just because you feel that way doesn't mean you act in a way they understand because you don't understand it yourself. Abusive people are the extreme example, but I'm also thinking about regular people who constantly say or do the wrong things.

So I've been thinking, how do I get a great, passionate, unpredictable, and realistic love story into my novel? I have no idea. I know if someone were to read my real life story from the outside they'd be like, huh? but if that story was given from my own POV then I hope they'd get it, even if I didn't always understand everything I did or said.

One problem is that most authors and readers want a certain effect. How often do the star crossed lovers get married and then go into debt and get a divorce because they fight about money too much? Or what about when the person you were supposed to spend eternity with becomes the bad guy?

I've read way too many YA fantasy novels and not enough of everything else - so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are fictional stories out there that are great AND realistic. If anyone has an example I would love to read it.

Another thought: did anyone notice how many characters have green eyes? I really don't know that many people with green eyes, or if they do it's not always noticeable. I guess I shouldn't talk, my main female has red hair - not exactly original.