How Writing is like Friendship

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Melanie Eden

Its sort of a strange way to look at it, but I find this to be very true with the projects I work on.  Sometimes when your really into your writing, you find yourself spending all your time with it.  You know everything about it, and you know exactly how things are going to progress, and you just feel so at peace with how things are flowing.  Those are the moments we struggle for, such as in life, or in this case – friendships.

A friendship – like a writing project – needs to be worked at, each of you needs to put in the time and effort to make the relationship work.  If no one is putting anything into it – its likely not a good friendship, or one that you don’t care much about.

Sometimes when things aren’t awesome with what I’m working on, I spend a lot of time grumbling to myself and stomping around the house to help me think.  I make tea and pour over the problem, trying to see it from another perspective, or changing my approach to it.

Tell me you’ve never had to do this when your fighting with a friend your having problems seeing eye to eye with.  Neither one of you will budge for whatever reason, but you know that if you could just both explain yourselves better you might still disagree, but be able to see past the problem your having and move on.

I’m sure I’ll think of more, but that’s all I have for right now.

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Feyland – Anthea Sharp

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Melanie Eden

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Because of my long office hours, I spend a lot of time reading.  I read anything that sounds interesting at the time, and quite often its something that combines an interesting story line with some sort of romantic tone mixed in.  Most recently I downloaded an anthology of a few “First of series” Faerie books, and came across this gem.  (Pictured above is actually the cover for the prequel to the series of the same name.  I don’t have the cover shot for book 1 because it wasn’t featured in the anthology — Sad)

It caught me by surprise, mostly because all I expected was to be entertained by some new authors for a short time, I never expected that I would become so fully engaged in this trilogy, and start recommending it to others.

A surprising mix of Sci fi and magic that I found simply delectable, bundled into a YA novel that anyone can enjoy.  If your a gamer, or just someone who likes the idea of what technology we will see moving forward in our evolution as a species (think oculus rift, but better) the core concept of this book will grab you.  The characters are high school age, and so the author chose to create her own slang for the time period (rather then pop culture terms) that fits with the plot and setting.  I found myself needing very little explanation to follow it, and found that it wasn’t used so much that it became tiresome.

The main love interest is a classic case of rich girl meets interesting guy from the wrong side of the tracks.  I loved this, as it gave us an opportunity to see how each half of the society lived in this futuristic world.

You’ll notice that I’m not really explaining much about the story line, but merely explaining elements of the story.  My reason for this is because I didn’t have anything before I started to read this book.  I hadn’t read an explanation of it, or seen a cover.  All I had was that it was about faeries, and away I went.  I have a feeling that’s half of the reason why I’m so wonderfully in love with this series.  It was like a hidden gem I discovered with the first chapter, and I found it difficult to put it down once I started.  I don’t want to deny anyone else that chance at the same discovery I had.

Sometimes the discovery alone is worth its weight in gold, that feeling you get as you piece together what you’ve just started to read.  We forget that feeling more and more often, when we skim book descriptions and know immediately if we’re going to reject them or consume them.  I’m just as bad as the next person, I hate starting to read something new without knowing if its something I’m going to like or not.  I browse certain genres and authors first before branching out into the unknown.  I’ve been burned before by buying books I really don’t like, but then there are times, like this one, when I find something so wonderful, I just can’t help but share it. ❤

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New Ideas, and Old Thoughts

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Melanie Eden

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Its been too long since I’ve had time to just sit and relax for a full day. Happily, today was one of those days. I was able to spend the whole morning outside enjoying the sun, and the silence until the neighborhood woke up and got to work for the day. All I did for the longest time was just sit on my front step with my eyes closed and love where I was, taking the time to appreciate all of the things that I have, and all of the beautiful people in my life. As I sat there, my thoughts started to go deeper, and I started to tell myself a story and weaving random ideas together. Before I realized it, I was brainstorming a new idea for a story.

I’m so excited. I spent the rest of the morning getting as much of it as I could down on paper, and keeping it with me in my mind. I don’t want to let it go too long in case I forget something important, but I have a feeling that I’ve done well. Two pages of cramped and somewhat sequential notes about the main characters, and the main theme, and some minor characters as well. I need to figure out what the problem is for the story, but I have a needed ingredient for the plot, and a center stage for important character building moments.

I have a friend who passed away quite a few years ago now, and not so strangely she was very much with me this morning while I was in my land of discovery. It felt different then how she’s usually with me. Normally I feel her and only get a sense of weather or not she would think I’m on the right track with a particular character, but this time I feel like it was thinking of her this morning that lead me to the new story.

Religion has never been overly important to me, for the most part I can take it or leave it, although I’m glad that others are able to find peace in it. I’ve always been more prone to believing in the natural order, that some things just happen, and that you need to be a good person if you expect good things to happen to you in return, as well as the more traditional views about hard work paying off. Nothing too wishy washy. When my friend passed, I never quite thought of her as gone. It was a tragic accident that took her life, and it took everyone that knew her by surprise, but no matter how sad I was, I’ve always felt that she was with me.

It’s been a private comfort since she passed. I don’t really talk about her much, but I think about her often. I suspect that I’m not the only one, she was so full of life while she was alive, she had so much to give.

As I wrote down my planning today, I thought of her, and I let my memories of her guide me while designing my new characters. I do that a lot. Mostly for the females I write. Before she and I met, I used to write very docile and meek girls who needed a man to save them. I had a very romanticized view on how girls fell in love and went through life. She got mad at me one day and made me see how wrong this was, that girls could be strong and knights too. They didn’t NEED to have someone save them all the time, that they could be strong and independent and still be beautiful and loved.

It was a hard niche to get out of, but one that I’m glad I left behind. I have a very strong female presents in my own life, one who has never been afraid to stand up for herself, and I never took the time to realize it until my friend opened my eyes. It was in that moment that I think I really began to find my own voice.

So strong female characters, but they’ll need to be in order to get through what trials await them. We’ll all need to be strong.

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Divided concentration

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Melanie Eden

I’ve been bouncing between two projects for a little while now. Its both a good thing and a bad thing. Its nice because I have the freedom to work on whichever idea is first and foremost in my mind at any given time. Its bad, because sometimes you need to have a bit more structure in order to force yourself to sit and work on an idea.

The one project I’m working on is heavy into re writing and editing, while the other is more trying to get the words down in a clear and concise way before I forget where the story is going.

Its tough to decided on any given day what I really want to work on, and sometimes it feels like I spend so much time going back and forth that I don’t really get enough work done. Sucks. I’m thinking about giving myself a schedule for what days I’ll work on each project so that I can actually get a fair enough bit of work done on each one. They are both important to me for different reasons, and I would hate to abandon either one for the other. Its really all about balance, and I’m still trying to learn the best way to do that for myself while being as productive as possible.

Today I’ve chosen to focus on my second project, and get down some new material.  Its a satisfying way to spend the morning at least when I don’t feel like editing.  I never really feel like editing, but sometimes I can force myself more easily to get into the task then today.  Today I have one set of characters speaking to me, and there story wants to be told.  Its a happy moment for me, as I’ve been struggling with one part of there story for a little while.  It has been a difficult part for me to write, simply because I don’t have as much experience writing this sort of scene, and I’m so paranoid about getting it just right.  Even once I have it written out, its going to need a whole bunch of read through and editing to get it to sound just right.  Not looking forward to it, but such is a writers life.  50% writing, and 50% editing.  Well give or take on some projects, but you know what I mean 😀

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Contemplating Planning

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Melanie Eden

I like the idea of planning what I write. I love the look of a clean new piece of paper or a crisp clear computer screen, all fresh and ready to take down whatever pops into my mind. I love the fact that anything I put down is new and has no mistakes yet, and that it can go any direction I want it to go in.

And then I have moments when I’m not really ready to start into a larger epic, and I feel the need to plan out my brain. Sometimes there are just too many thoughts running through my mind, too many possibilities to consider. And even if I have a thought about an over all story, I get sidetracked thinking about what I actually want to happen in the story, what its really going to be about.

The truth is I love to write about people. They are the basis for any story really. And if you know the people that you are writing about then then story should be easier to get down, right? But its not always that easy for me. I get a lot of my ideas strangely enough from dreams or passing fancy’s I can’t really explain, and I’m okay with that. The thing that I’m not very good with is figuring out all of the complexities of the story that surrounds the characters that come to me. I usually get the basis of the ideas pounded out right away, and how they are going to come across the larger problem. I even get to how the bulk of said problem will unfold, but the thing that I have a problem with are the endings. I honestly don’t know the ending until it comes. I always wonder if I should know that before hand, or if its something that the story needs to tell you as your telling it.

I wonder if that makes any sense really, or if its just me trying to rationalize something that goes on in my mind.

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Sick sick sick

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Melanie Eden

This is my third day home sick this week.  Today is much improved from the first day I was home.  I can at least type / read.  I’ve read like five books since I’ve been home, and I have done a whole bunch of work email.  Today I want to see if I can get a little bit of writing done, and at least feel like the day hasn’t been a complete loss.

Le Sigh

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Daily excitment

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Melanie Eden

So for the day, my excitement is reading the first two chapters of Kim Harrison’s new book coming out in September – The witch with no name.  It’s the last installment in the Hollow’s series, and if the first two chapters are any indication, it’s going to be fantastic.

Well that’s all I have for the day.

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What I’m reading – Ever After

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Melanie Eden

So I recently finished reading Ever After by Kim Harrison.  By that I mean that the book came out on Tuesday, and I finished reading it on Wednesday.  I’ve been struggling with myself since Wednesday night to properly put into words how I feel about the book.

Ever After is the most recent addition to Kim Harrison’s Hollow’s series, and I only started to read it this past summer.  Its one of those series that has been around for a while, but I’ve never truly felt like it was something I would like.  I had a bout of book hunger this summer, and needed something new, as all of the other series I was waiting for weren’t due to release new books any time soon, and decided I’d finally give the first book – Dead Witch Walking – a try.

Have you ever felt the obsession that comes with finding a truly excellent series?  I have, many times.  Its mostly just my personality, but I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever read so many books in such a short span of time in my whole life.  I read the first 10 books in about 2 weeks.  I think I may have read a book a day for a couple of those days.  Yes, I was working full time.  I’m not entirely sure how I managed this, but I did.  And it wasn’t just that I had to know what happened, but also that I grew so attached to the characters.  Each book just kept getting better and better, and adding more depth to the characters and their plights, I was truly caught up in something wonderful.

I’m a fanfiction writer, I’m not sure if its my generation or simply the demographic I’m mashed into, but usually if I find something that speaks to me like the Hollows, I can’t help but find something I want to write about.  Of course since I’m a very SLOW fanfiction writer, and usually I have WAY too much to do to simply sit and write ever time the fancy strikes me, I may get something penciled out, but very little else is ever done with those rough drafts.  With this series, I can’t comprehend adding anything to it.  I simply want to see where Kim takes us.  She is truly, by far, the best author a fan-girl like me could ever have found.

So, in the middle of July, as I re-read the whole series again, I prepared myself to wait until January when the new book would be out.

Kim Harrison is fantastic.  She released the first 2 chapters in December.  There was just enough in those first few chapters to make you want to cry in happiness, and also make you even more frustrated to finally have the entire book in your hands.

In January she released the third chapter (which was more like the third, forth and fifth) a week before the true release.  After I had finished reading it, I could do nothing but imagine what would happen next.  Obsessed is a really easy thing to say, but when your living it, it sucks!  You can’t think of anything else, but this story that your so invested into your heart hurts.

When Tuesday rolled around, and the book was truly released I downloaded it in the morning and started reading from where I had left off, and I lived nothing but the book for those two days.  I went to school and work and although I managed to get through the days, the only thing I could think of was reading, and what was currently going on in the book.

I finished it shortly after getting home from work on Wednesday.  I was filled with so much emotion by the end of the book, that I cried.  Its so bittersweet, and so well written that I can’t stop thinking about it.  All I want to do is talk about everything that happened in it, but since no one else I know reads this series, I’m left to ponder and muse over everything on my own.  Its not working for me.  I need to talk about, or express how I feel about these things.  I’m hoping that this will help me get past some of my internal frustration of not actually being able to discuss the book at length with someone else who has read it already, but somehow I’m not sure that it will.  I’ll have to daydream about the “What If’s” until my brain gets tired of it, or until next January rolls around.

Damn it.

Currently
Downward Spiral
By Nine Inch Nails

see related

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Friday mussings

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Melanie Eden

Its sad when web pages you used to frequent so much that the web address was burned into your mind vanish.

The first website that I ever posted Eternal Promises in Aishiteru, or http://www.yaoijanai.com is no more.  It was a massive archive of gundam wing fanfiction, and it was a really awesome place to get some feed back.  There was no comments system, the author had to leave an email address for someone to leave them a review.  I think it weeded out the flames, or the people who would just click comment and leave crap for the author.  The reviews that you actually got were well thought out, and usually only sent by the people who felt it was important to go out of their way to let you know how much they enjoyed what you were writing.

I love ff.net, and I only joined that site after finding a few other places I liked more, but the thing that I don’t like about the site, besides the annoying new adds, is the fact that while they have made it easier and more accessible for fans to post comments and reviews and send emails to the authors, it has opened the door for more non constructive comments, even harsh words.  Not that I think that ever site should go back to the way it used to be, I enjoy seeing any review mainly because I try and use them as a way to improve the things I write.  I try and incorporate the good ideas people leave, and use them to improve ideas I maybe had previously.  Maybe its that I wish that the people leaving reviews or criticisms for authors would stop and take a look at what it is they are reading.  Do they write themselves?  Do they have any idea what the author has go through at all to put they’re ideas down on paper in a consecutive series of events?  Writing is one of those things that takes work, and no matter what anyone says, its not easy.  Well it isn’t easy without much work put into it.

Just speaking from my own experience, I find that the longer you pick at something, the more you understand the subject or your characters can make the words flow better, but that’s not all that it is.  You have to have a good plot, a good story basis to work with or it doesn’t matter what you manage to put down on the paper, it won’t be very good or engaging. 

That being said, fluff is always enjoyable if done right, and there doesn’t necessarily have to be a true story to go along with it.

It takes a lot of courage to put your writing out there for other people to read it.  It takes courage to put a piece of yourself on display no matter what your craft, and the best thing that anyone offering critisisem can do is to put themselves in the creators shoes for a moment and appreciate what it was that was done, no matter if its to your taste or not.  Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

 

Now back to revisions.  

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Long nights of dance games and rockband

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Melanie Eden

Last weekend we took a long overdue trip to visit some friends of ours with a group of other people.  It was so awesome to see people we haven’t seen for so long.  You know the true test of friendship is how you interact once you see someone again after a long absence.  People you really wern’t all that close to, its hard to talk to them again, but good friends, the ones you know so well its painful, its like your conversations never stopped, only that there was a long pause with life stuffed in the middle.

These are the good kind of friends, and I don’t even know if I can stress how fantastic it was to see them again.

We used to see most of our friends every weekend, no fail.  We lived in various parts of the city, and near out of town, and Friday and Saturday nights were a common affair of group rockband and possibly dancing games.  Its really not funny.  I think we broke a few sets of rockband instruments mearly because we played them so often.  The nights were often heavily influenced by alcohol and rowdy conversations.  

It was joyous.  

 

But now everyone is getting older, some of the group have children now, and so the rip-roaring cacophony isn’t as common.  It still happens on occasion, but things are much tamer then they once were. 

I’m not really sure why I’m reflecting on this, but I suppose because its a nice thing to think about.  It was something so heavily influenced by the people who arrived, and every night was memorable in one way or another.  The venue may have been mostly the same for a large part of the time, but it was good while it lasted.

When we were at our friends place, we had much the same sort of night, but instead of rockband, it consisted of the new Kinect dance game.  Its surprisingly catchy, and defiantly intense enough to make you sweat!  I’m afraid that its become the new obsession with everyone.  There are worse things to be obsessed with I suppose ^_^

 

Tomorrow I want to get back into EP, I’ve sorta taken a few days off after my exam.  I’ve gotten back into working out again, and I feel so much better.  I”m really trying hard to fit everything into my days.  I have so many things that I want to do, and If I only get a little bit done of everything everyday, then I’m making progress with everything, and thats a positive thought.

 

I found out today that all my hard work payed off as well, I passed the 2nd of the 4 courses I have to take over the next little while.  Its a huge weight off of my shoulders knowing that I have 1 more under my belt.  I don’t have to look at the course work again until my huge final.  Thats a daunting thought, but it’ll be worth it when I’m compleatly done.

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