Ileandra Young, gleefully penning smut, vamp-fiction, fantasy and comedy since 1997.
Hey there! Thanks for dropping by Writing: A Conversation Without Interruptions! Take a look around and grab the RSS feed to stay updated. See you around!
So you know how procrastination is the absolute staple of a writer’s diet? And that we can find all manner of anything and everything to do except finish what we’re trying to do? Well that happened back in November when I started NaNoWriMo and finished it with a very respectable 71,590 words in 30 days. Silk Over Razor Blades went on the back burner while I sorted out (and I’m still sorting, by the way) the wonder that is Clash Of The Animal Kings. So… I’m good at procrastination; I’ve found a sure fire way to avoid ever getting to the end of SORB. -______- Well now it seems I’ve also found a way to avoid finishing Clash as well.
By the lovely people who brought you NaNoWriMo, there is now Script Frenzy. Another fabulous initiative brought to you by The Office Of Letters And Light in which the challenge is to write a 100 page script in 30 days. Good grief. I keep getting the emails about it after successfully completing the NaNo and part of me wants to dive the hell in and give it my all. The other part of me knows full well that I have more than enough projects on the go to avoid adding anything else to that list.
Its crazed, but part of me wants to give up my April to do this. I don’t think it will be quite as nuts as the NaNo was, simply because prose is that much harder to write and I have done script work before. I find it relatively simply once I’ve got a good flow going; must more so than prose. Still, it is a month that I would have to give to Script Frenzy rather than completing two incredibly important projects.
On a similar note, when I paused SORB for the sake of Clash I had a ream of notes in mind from my last read through in which I found points that I wanted to smooth out and round off. Last week, when going through my emails, I found an email from Martin. This man, I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before, but he is the chap, along with his wife, who read through SORB for me a couple of years ago and gave me some very clear, concise and worthwhile feedback. Obviously writing is personal and subjective, so there are aspects of what they said I didn’t agree with and others that I wholeheartedly did, but the return email I got from that piece of work was the basis of a rather significant overhaul for the novel. In May 2010 I sent it to him again with my edits in place for a second round as it were. However, busy lives for all concerned has made it impossible for him to give it much attention. Until last week. His email, when he asked if there was an up to date copy of the novel reminded me of just what I have at stake, what’s on hold and why I was in such a state back in October.
Remember when I talked about not being ready? Well this is part of that. So getting that email from Martin and realising that I’ve paid no attention to SORB since about October made me cringe. And I’ve been reading through Gaea in my spare time which is just reminding me of all these other things I need to be doing. What I’ve done is send him the file so he can take a look at the current edit; as in after I did a lot of work from his initial comments. Every year, however, I grow and mature as a writer, so its going to be interesting to get it back from him, with his comments and then realise that there were a few bits and bobs that I was going to change anyway. And see how well they tally up with his comments.
Anyway, maybe ‘panic’ isn’t quite the right word, but suddenly, with that in my mind, rattling around Script Frenzy and Clash I suddenly feel like I’ve got a whole lot to do and very little time to do it in. I have a clear and definite deadline for Clash. June 30 2011 is when my voucher runs out and I want to give myself space and time to be sure its perfect so I want it done by my birthday. That’s the start of May. I have LARPs coming up and parties and weddings and all manner of other gatherings that are going to take me away from writing, so I’ve got to push hard. If Clash isn’t done by then, I’ve missed my window. Which would be tragic, in my opinion. What I need to do is give the novel a good strong push to be sure that I’m on the way to finishing my editing. Its March now, in truth that doesn’t leave me very much time.
Wow, okay, I think I’ve talked myself right into the answer to the question ‘should I do Script Frenzy this year?’ Ha!
Call it research. Call it boredom. Whatever you want to call it – I choose to call it ‘getting to know my genre’ – I’ve been reading a lot of vampire books lately. I’ve picked up with some of my older work (To Be A Teenage Vampire, Mathias, Gaea) and then looked more into what other authors are doing or have already done. I was told once that it is important to know your audience, your contemporaries and your competition. Its very true, though I don’t know if I consider these people my ‘competition’ exactly. Silk Over Razor Blades particularly, feels like a very different book to any of those that I’m going to discuss here. That could be my own blinkered sight, or my bias, but I don’t think so.
Anyways, I’m going to spend a while doing this, so this may even spread across two posts. As it is, I’ve decided to split my mini-rant into deciding whether or not vampires in film are still cool, followed by whether vampires in books are still cool. You’ll like this… I really think you will.
I’ll start with Anne Rice and Interview With A Vampire.
Forget for a second that I was probably something like 16 when I first encountered the likes of Louis and Lestat and I did so in the form of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise respectively.
Oh and Antonio Banderas. Oh dear god that man is phiiiine!!! With those creepy, long nails and that lovely dark hair. All fake, yes, yes, I know, but he made a bloody good Armand. I soooo wanted him to kiss Louis, they were so close!
Ahem, anyway, yes, Interview, was probably one of the first vampire films I ever saw and then I made a point of reading the book several years later. The book, written in a peculiar sort of first person narrative style made me love Louis all the more. The book’s voice, which of course was his, was so very sad and yet hard because underneath all of his suffering and pain, there was a hard, solid core of vampire who had to kill to survive.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the book as well as I remember the film, but the traditional aspects of vampires, like blood drinking, aversion to daylight and sleeping in coffins, were all things that I enjoyed. Early on in my ‘life with vampires’ I understood that these were the norms.
I can’t consider Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles a competition to the SORB series simply because vampires in 2011 aren’t like that any more.
Blade.
Good freakin’ god! I try not to swear in these entries – and often fail – but Blade just pissed me off something rotten, even when I first saw it at about 17 years old? Something like that. I’ve not read the comics, so let’s get that out of the way right now, I’m talking about the films. Considering the fact that I consider Wesley Snipes to be a total douche, those films were just wrong. So very, very wrong! Vampires are born? The hell?! Vampires are hunted by one of their own?! Yikes! I know Blade (stupid name, by the way) is half vamp, but waaaaaaat? And he only has to deal with the ‘bad’ parts of being a vampire. The blood drinking, the aversion to sunlight. What about the awesome stuff he gets on top of that like rapid healing, speed, increased agility and a funky sword (that last one isn’t really to do with being a vampire, but just stay with me on this, okay.)? All he does is whine about it and do his damnedest to be as human as possible.
I think that’s the part I hate most; even in the real world I’m a great advocate of ‘you are what you are; deal with it!’ Not so much fate, or the ‘Grand Master Plan’ or anything religious or daft like that, but mainly that you can’t change what you are deep inside. Maybe you can change your outward appearance, or what people think of you, but if you really are a total dork who collects stamps and patriotic paraphernalia (look out, here comes the royal wedding!), than that’s what you are. Likewise, if you’re a raving sports nut who adores David Beckham and yet hasn’t got a clue who Thesus or Hippolyta are, then burying your face in an upside down copy of Pride And Prejudice isn’t going to fool anybody (particularly anybody who reads Shakespeare or Jane Austin :p).
So why should this film teach that trying to deny who you are is the right way to go about your business? It would have been less of an issue for me if Blade eventually just came to accept what he was, but from what I could see, he seemed to get worse and worse and more whiny as the film went on. I’m not sure about the other two films – its a trilogy, right? – but I really don’t have it in me to give them a chance. Ho hum.
Dracula
There are lots of version of this bad boy and he’s been around for years (Bram’s Stoker’s novel was published in 1897 I believe?). I think my absolute favourite version has got to be that portrayed by Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Now this definitely does smack of a bit of bias, but Gary Oldman is a god (have you seen Fifth Element? Batman? Air Force One?!) and he plays this character beautifully.
I’m also thrilled that the script was almost lifted word for word (well, at least in the beginning) from the book, with the letters than Jon Harker wrote well as those ones that Mina wrote on her typewriter. The less said about the ended and about Keanu Reeves as an actor the better (I’ve never heard an Englishman talk like that!) but Anthony Hopkins was a pleasure to watch (as always) as was Cary Elwes.
However it is all about Gary Oldman and how he manages to switch from wizened old man – with silly hair, hehee! – to tall, striking, smooth-talking seducer. Its just fabulous! And this incarnation of the character Dracula, pulled off something that, previous to this, I’d not seen enough to satisfy me. The seduction. The power hidden in a human’s lust and how a vampire can use that to find a meal.
All teenagers are obsessed with sex – yes, even girls – and again I was quite young when I watched this, but I think that scene where Lucy left her room in the middle of the night, wandering out into the garden in her nightdress was just beautiful. I mean Dracula, at that point, was a beast; a big, hairy, ugly thing and yet she was still drawn to him. She went to him willingly and offered up her throat for him to take… I absolutely loved that about the film. Its just such a delicious thought… vampires can lure you in! FUCK yeeeeeeeah!
So… at this point, I think I’ve decided that vampires in film are still cool. But this, I’m afraid, doesn’t touch on much of the more modern stuff – post 2001 – simply because I’ve not watched a lot of it. I, personally, think I’m slipping, but things like Daybreakers and Blade Trinity (-_-) just don’t seem to do it. I was interested in Daybreakers and, if I get the chance, will watch it in the near future. But it really does seem to be the older stuff that has kept me the most interested.
Oh. That is of course, until I mention the inevitable.
Twilight
I know, I know! Every time I have a rant or a long blowout about vampires, these ones come up, but really… sparkling vampires?! Whoever heard of such bollocks? And the fact that my mother claims that ‘the book explains it all as you read it, and it really does make a lot of sense’ is not going to change my mind. It doesn’t make sense. None at all!
Vampires don’t sparkle. Vampires aren’t angsty teenagers who, according to the film, because they are so young, go out of their way to go to school and be ‘normal’ and yet form those horrible, disgusting, pretensious, snotty cliques, that every geek, dork, nerd and outcast fears worse than sports day. Vampires certainly have their fun playing baseball games in the middle of nowhere just so they can ‘play it properly.’ They may have a problem with werewolves (thanks Underworld ) but then, who doesn’t?
Then again, its not the vampires that bother me most in these films (or the books). Its Bella. With her annoying innocence and freakishly stalker-like tendencies. She ain’t so innocent. Lordy and her incurable fascination with the mundane; she went to school, she ate some lunch, this hot boy looked at her; oh fuck I’d better run home and hide in my room! GUH!
-_-
Well. Okay. That’s enough about vampire films.
I need to wrap this up by pulling my thoughts together. This isn’t all of the vampire films (or TV shows) I’ve seen, not by a long shot (Vampire In Brooklyn, Dracula Dead And Loving It, Buffy, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Dracula, From Dusk Til Dawn, Blackula, Queen Of The Damned, Van Hellsing etc), but these are the ones that stick in my mind. They stick because they have spoken to me and help shape what the vampires of Silk Over Razor Blades are like.
Not to say that my vampires are the true vampires, but I’ve thought long and hard about what makes sense in the vampire mythos and what doesn’t. About how they can hide themselves from humans (Buffy and most other vampire flicks) or, if the tale spins that way, how they have come to be known and accepted/hunted (Sookie Stackhouse books – True Blood TV Series, Daybreakers). How they live day by day (or night by night), since this is a feature that varies across my novels. Silk Over Razor Blade vampires are very different to Gaea’s vampires who are in turn very different to the vampires of Mathias.
Anyway, the point is, if I compare what I’m doing to screen adaptations of vampires then I’ve got very little to worry about in terms of keeping myself fresh and original. Its in other novels where the real competition begins. o.O I’ll cover that next time.
This has come about as a result of two things. Neither of them are bad and, strangely, they are linked to completely different things and ache in very different ways.
Finger Ache One
I’ve been practising guitar again. I was learning to play back in the summer and with the mini break down I seemed to have around September/October time, I was forced to stop because there just wasn’t time to squeeze it in. I’m a ridiculously busy person. However, with a friend of mine talking about starting a band and asking for drums, guitar and bass (I think) I realised that this was the perfect way to encourage me gently to practise. Just like writing, having a final goal is something that makes the hours of ache much, much easier to handle. Just like my weight loss (two stone and counting!) knowing where you are going, makes it easier to push towards that point and recover from set backs. So… I picked up my guitar again.
Ooooh boy, but my fingers are in agony. And just on one hand. My fretting hand (the left) is sore all over from stretching and raw on the fingertips from holding the strings. The strings are much less hard than they were before we changed them, and it easier to hold them now than it was in summer. But whatever hard skin I may have developed while I was practising every day last year, is now gone. Crickey! Even now, typing this – I touch type, remember? – my left hand is whining at me to stop. Mainly because, previous to writing this post, I was playing catch up on my other blog and typing up the posts that I should have done about four weeks ago. So I’ve already written something in the region of 2000 words today. Not hard, hell I do that for a single post on the Ice Wolf Tavern, but not normally after my fingers have been scraped raw.
The guitar is hanging next to me now; its mounted on a wall hook beside me, looking all awesome and shiny and beautiful. I’ll tell you what; having it so close by to me, is making me feel, more and more, like I want to pick the thing up. Plus, my partner also plays and so does my uncle. An uncle that’s going to be coming along to the party we’re planning here in the new house around Easter. The same uncle, incidentally, who I confidently told I would be able to play guitar with, next time I saw him. Eeep! So now I have two reasons to pull my finger out and get on with it.
I told him I’d be able to play a Bob Marley track with him and, even though I know its not totally possible, it would be nice if it could sound a little like this:
It won’t, not for a while, but I have a goal and, like I said, goals make things easier.
Finger Ache Two
I think this is more metaphorical than a real, physical ache. After all, my fingers do hurt, but this is something deeper than that pain. This ache is mainly from my desire- no, my need to write more. It might sound cheesy and cliché, but I’m incredibly happy when I’m writing. NaNoWriMo reminded me, more than anything has managed for a long time, just how much I love to write. How much it means to me that I can do it and how it feels when I put my fingers to the keyboard keys. Or even when I pick up a pen. I enjoy doing it and so far it is the only consistent hobby I’ve held onto. Everything else has had a shelf life of around five years… maybe six. Writing I’ve been doing since I was twelve.
This ache is more of the growing understanding that since Christmas I’ve lost my focus. I remember in November, when I was pushing to get the NaNo finished, I was writing almost every single day, sometimes as much as 10,000 words in one run. It felt wonderful, but the reason I managed to do that was because I had a goal and a mission and an end point that it was important to me that I reach. I think I’ve lost sight of that since the competition ended. Yes, I’ve managed to ‘win,’ I’ve got my printed certificate and everything, but that is the end of that, its a mission completed. Now, the far distant goal of ‘putting a novel in print’ seems unattainable and a long way off.
I keep thinking back to the way I felt back in October when I realised that SORB was in no way ready to offer to agents. I remember how crushed I felt. I’m not quite like that yet, but I have shifted my focus from small steps to the big goal which is, obviously much further away and a long term goal.
So, this ache in my fingers, to get back to my keyboard and write is my head pushing at me to keep working towards that goal. But I think I’ve got it wrong. I think what I need to be doing is setting myself small goals, just like for NaNoWriMo. That was thirty days and I knew what I had to do in that time. Looking forward to next year or the one after when I finally publish… well its no wonder I’m a little demotivated.
I’m going to set myself some smaller goals. I think that’s what I need to do; so say by the end of March that I’ve finished my rewrite of Clash and that I’m going over it a second time to see where more work is needed. The final goal for that novel is June when my voucher for the free proof copy runs out. But there’s no point getting it wrong and then ending up with a rubbish, unpolished novel that no one wants to read, because its a bit crap. I want to be sure its as good as it can be in the time I have available to me now.
Soothing The Ache
Well I know what I have to do in that case. With regards to the first ache, I’d better just keep practising until my fingers are used to it! The second ache, is a bit harder, but that’s what this blog is for; to remind me what I’m doing and to keep telling the world just in case you forget. Can’t have that can we now?
Yes, well I think that title is pretty self explanatory.
As well as charting the progress of Clash and SORB I think important to use this blog to remind people I’m here. Something I’ve not been doing too well at over the last couple of weeks. I could blame Christmas and New Year and Illness and Moving and everything else, but it just seems like something of a cop out to me. All of that stuff never stopped me going to work (even though illness really should have), so it shouldn’t stop me writing either. I’m not getting paid for it, but I still need to think of this as a job. A job for which I will be paid later.
So… I will be writing a post a week through all of 2011. I was going to go for ‘Post A Day’ but even the most enthusiastic part of me is able to acknowledge that such a think isn’t a realistic goal for me. Unless I was going to update you daily on novel progress which I think is a bit pointless really. So I’m doing A Post A Week instead.
Now everything has moved – as in, I’ve not got my deposit back yet, but everything is now moved out of my old studio – I should be able to get on with doing a little bit of writing each day. RPGs, short stories and Facebook crap don’t count. I mean real writing and real editing of both my novels. Clash is getting the priority because I don’t want my voucher to run out from NaNoWriMo, though after that, I’ll be straight back to SORB since that’s what this blog is about. I also plan to go back to the Writer’s Club and join up properly so I can keep attending their meetings. I’ll also get the hell on with joining Inspired Quill properly so I can write there too.
This year is all about my mission. Hold onto your hats, its going to be a bumpy one!
Right, so there really isn’t much I can do about it, but that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty as hell and more than a little irritated and twitchy.
Moving house is one thing; it needed to happen, I’m glad its happened and I know I’m going to love where I’m living and who I’m living with. But, since I’m still spread across two houses right now, I haven’t managed to get my computer over here. That means I’m typing this on a laptop – a mac no less; YUK! – and pining for my own machine.
Its funny how much of a security blanket your own computer seems to be. Or my own computer seems to be. I’ve not been so bad without it over the last week, though I am aware that all the fabulous thoughts and plans I had for Clash are slowly slipping out of my grasp. As a result, I think I’m going to use some time to refresh myself as to what I was planning and ensure that its in my head. That way, tomorrow, I can go back to my own place, grab my computer, bring it over here, hook it all up and be away!
Yes… this is the ‘necessary pause.’ And I say necessary, though I should, probably say ‘unavoidable.’ After all, I had to leave the PC in place to ensure I still had net access for other commitments of mine unrelated to writing. Now that has been sorted, however, I have very little excuse left.
I was also thinking, at some point earlier today, that its time to look into cover art for my book. I know I’m pushing ahead of the game here, but Clash is going to end up in print, even though I’m going to do it myself. I think it would be lovely to have some art work that actually linked in to the novel and was made for it. Dunno where I’m going to get that exactly, but I suppose I needs to start thinking about it fairly soon. Oh and I should look at what Scrivenger – or whatever they’re called – actually have to offer.
I know I can make the novel – it will only be a proof copy, but it will be as perfect as I can make it – available on Amazon. Now, Amazon is just a database, I know that. Its not actually a bookshop or anything like that, but people being able to find my work there and my name will be a fabulous start. But if that’s the case and people can buy it for a nominal amount, I still want it to be awesome and beautiful and perfect for you all. That experience will make it all the easier to look at Silk Over Razor Blades in close detail and go on towards finding an agent for that piece of work.
I would say that the search continues, but at the moment it doesn’t. Not at all. The novel is nowhere near ready for that level of scrutiny and my attention is all on Clash right now. Though its nice to remember what I’m actually doing this for, every now and then. The rush and the thrill I get at the idea of putting my work in print.
There. Well I really am just rambling at this point. Time to stop methinks. The more tidying I get done in the study, the easier it will be to move my computer in and get the hell on with work!
RT @Derek_Haines: I just want to say .... Auto DM's really suck. If you have one, you really won't make friends. You'll just have relieved … Tweeted: 6 days ago
Freakin yes! I'm officially BELOW pre pregnancy weight! Tweeted: 6 days ago
RT @PsychicWitness: @RayneHall I prefer horror that creeps you out rather than grosses you out. Spooky is better. Tweeted: 1 week ago
So you know how procrastination is the absolute staple of a writer’s diet? And that we can find all manner of anything and everything to do except finish what we’re trying to do? Well that happened back in November when I started NaNoWriMo and finished it with a very respectable 71,590 words in 30 days. Silk Over Razor Blades went on the back burner while I sorted out (and I’m still sorting, by the way) the wonder that is Clash Of The Animal Kings. So… I’m good at procrastination; I’ve found a sure fire way to avoid ever getting to the end of SORB. -______- Well now it seems I’ve also found a way to avoid finishing Clash as well.
I have a clear and definite deadline for Clash. June 30 2011 is when my voucher runs out and I want to give myself space and time to be sure its perfect so I want it done by my birthday. That’s the start of May. I have LARPs coming up and parties and weddings and all manner of other gatherings that are going to take me away from writing, so I’ve got to push hard. If Clash isn’t done by then, I’ve missed my window. Which would be tragic, in my opinion. What I need to do is give the novel a good strong push to be sure that I’m on the way to finishing my editing. Its March now, in truth that doesn’t leave me very much time.
The second ache, is a bit harder, but that’s what this blog is for; to remind me what I’m doing and to keep telling the world just in case you forget. Can’t have that can we now? 
