{ Clothes for ghosts }

Well, since I've been spending my time on Pinterest oggling hot guys, I thought I'd share some things with you. The truth is that I think more about Nathan's clothes than do about his body (le gasp!).  Not to say he doesn't look good sans clothing... But I like to think of Nathan as one of those guys that looks good in his clothes, as well as out of them. I like a man who pays attention to his appearance. No, I'm not trying to say Nathan is a metrosexual or anything. He just knows an awesomely tailored jacket when he sees one. He probably owns more trench and pea coats then he'd care to admit.

Nathan definitely dresses in what could be considered classic pieces: button down shirts with ties, sweaters, jackets. Obviously not your normal teenager wardrobe, but then again, Nathan is no ordinary teenager. When he's feeling the need to dress to impress, he'll even button up a vest (or waistcoat, as he would say) and look sexy in a three piece suit. Think Matt Bomer's character in "White Collar".

Nathan's idea of casual is to ditch the tie and don a pair of jeans--that fit properly, of course. None of this saggy, butt-hanging-out nonsense. He likes tee-shirts, but doesn't usually wear them in public since he thinks they're too clingy. Shorts are a no-go no matter how hot it is outside. (He's secretly ashamed of his legs. Very pasty in the grand English tradition.) He's also more fond of hats than they are of him, but he has a trusty drivers cap that he wears during all seasons. 

He secretly loves using his reading glasses for dramatic effect--swiping them off like a soap opera character, chewing on the ends in a thoughtful manner, etc. His one guilty pleasure piece of clothing is a fair-isle sweater that he wears when he's feeling nostalgic for Merry Ole England. 

{ Ghost pictures }

via: one, two, three

{ Music for ghosts }

I already talked about the musical inspirations for "Ghosts of Fallen Leaves" in this post here, but there's still tons more to say. I listen to music everyday. No joke. If I'm on the computer, music is playing. If I'm driving in my car it is a guarantee that my iPod is plugged in and blaring. My cassette adapter actually started working up a few weeks ago and I had a mini freak out moment before I realize it. I'd thought my speakers were broken, which would have been a far bigger problem.

Anyhoo, I like to think my writing is informed by the music I listen to. It's true that the main character from GOFL probably listens to the same stuff I do. Starfish, the band in the book, is probably a band I would have on repeat (though don't ask me to describe what they sound like...). I wouldn't say I write scenes with particular songs in mind, but when I'm listening to music, I like discovering songs that reflect the themes of the story and the characters. Whenever I discover a new song, I add it to the playlist so I can savor it later. 

I'm not going to give you all the songs at once. Instead I'm going to group them together in a vague order that makes sense probably only to me. Unfortunately because not every band is available to sample from on Grooveshark, I've had to leave a handful of songs out, but these give you the general idea. And they're really awesome songs, to boot!

About the songs:

I once read somewhere that The Hush Sound's "You are the Moon" is about someone who is depressed. It's such a lovely and haunting song that I thought it fit Becca's personality at the start of the story very well. "White Blank Page" by Mumford & Sons is a Nathan song, of course. The poor guy does like to torture himself so. "Go On" by Basia Bulat can be applied to the story as a whole. Her album, "Heart of My Own" is seriously one of my favorite albums ever. Next we have White Rabbits and their "Midnight and I" picking up the pace a little bit more. After a while the songs I found for GOFL were so damn emo that I went searching for songs I liked, but also had a bit more umph to them. There's a decent amount of scary stuff and action in the book, so why not turn to indie rock, am I right? The Republic Tiger's "Buildings and Mountains" finishes off this selection of songs. I'm not one hundred percent sure what its relevance is to the story, but I freaking love that song. It makes me think of Scott, if I'm honest...though I really can't say why.

Dear blog,

From here, via Pinterest

I don't like your face.

Just kidding. Well, sorta kidding anyway. I'm not liking the look of it anymore (so BORING) but I'm not feeling the time and commitment that's required to make it perfect. Perhaps I will work on it a little at a time and do a massive update.

First however, I should actually start blogging again. It's been over a month. Oops.

Summer has been kind of hectic between work and my (un)social life. Spare time has been spent playing Assassin's Creed on my friend's PS3 and watching awesome summer TV. This season's new favs: "Suits" on USA and "Teen Wolf" on MTV (don't judge me!!). I also took a staycation from work and painted my room. The color is nothing crazy, just a nice creamy mocha, but it is a drastic change from the old color which was a dark red. I'm still working on putting the room back together, so the walls are still naked. I bought new linens from Ikea, but I'm actually not that pleased with them. The cottage-loving freak in me wants to do a cream-white-blue color scheme, but that totally doesn't match any of the decor items I have besides a random sailboat and a crap ton seashells. And I totally do not want a nautical bedroom. Oh well, like everything else in my life, it is still a work on progress.

Oh dear, now I have an urge to give
Nathan stubble every once in a while...

Writing has been touch and go. Instead of agonizing over coming up with a third book for my Jane Austen series, I decided to just cram the first two together into one book. It's a completely viable idea, but I do need to work on whittling down the story. It's a little unwieldy now. As far as "Ghosts of Fallen Leaves" goes, I'm mostly waiting to hear back from my beta. She has such wonderfully observant things to say that she's really helping me pinpoint the weaknesses in my writing. I've already come up with some great changes improvements based on her comments. I'm constantly updating the project on Inkpop, swapping out old and new chapters as I go along.

Anyway, I haven't been too internet-active recently, but I have created an account on Pinterest and I'm using it for my author stuff. I've got a board, which features some images that make me think of "Ghosts of Fallen Leaves". They're a whole mishmash of different 'inspirational' photos, ranging from spooky ghost stuff to Queen Anne style houses that give the reader an idea of what the Historical Society house looks like. There's also a bunch of photos of hot guys in great clothes that mostly represent Nathan in my head. None of the guys look like Nathan, but they're wearing clothes that I image Nathan would wear. I used to say he dresses like  J-Crew model, but their style has changed as of late, so that no longer applies. Nathan definitely doesn't have that 'male model' look (he's too baby-faced, the poor guy) but he does dress nicely and somewhat expensively. A few of the photos are Ciaran-related images, as well. And a few are of Scott. 

Well, there's an random update for you. I hope I'll be back more regularly in the future. In the meantime, I'm watching "Psych" from the beginning in an effort to justify the money I pay Netflix. Unlike some people, my head didn't explode when they changed their contracts and fees. Instead, it exploded when it realized that I never freaking use it and yet I still pay for it. 

Exactly what is it that I do with my life?

And to wrap things up, here is my new favorite band, The Head and the Heart. It's such a lovely summer album. They got me through painting my room. On a side note, they were playing with my perennially favorite band, The Decemberists, in a show within driving distance of my home. I am more than a little peeved that I couldn't go see them. The Decemberists play with bands that I love, but never when I see them. This needs to be corrected during the next tour. 

I've been busy elsewhere

Anenome Jones | Flickr

What a horrible horrible blogger I am! It's been nineteen days since my last post. I'm glad to say I've been decently productive during that time. I've been doing a little reading, a little editing, a little outlining and a whole lot of book cover making. 

Inkpop has dictated most of my time. I've met some really nice people and its fun to read the awesome projects that others have written. I do worry sometimes that I come on a little strong in my comments, since I live to line edit apparently, but all has been so far. I hope. I like to think I've been helpful to someone, at least. 

My favorite project so far is the wonderful, Margaret Loves Mr. Darcy by Brianna Elizabeth. Brianna has a way of writing scenes that makes me painfully envious. MLMD is funny and bittersweet and I enjoy reading it. Brianna has graciously allowed me to help with editing the project and I've also made a cover for it! The project now sits on the Top Five on the website, so as long as it maintains its position, it is heading for the editor's desks at HarperCollins. Good luck, Brianna!

As far as my own projects are concerned, Ghosts of Fallen Leaves has returned to my main publishing focus. I've got the whole project posted on Inkpop on a temporary basis. I'm curious to see how far it gets in the ranking system. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to start promoting it. I plan on starting the editing process again soon. Hopefully it will be ready for publication by the end of the summer. 

Some Say in Ice, the sequel to GOFL, has hit a few rough patches recently. I started writing from my outline and already I can tell it's a bit weak. I realized with a onslaught of dread that nothing actually happens in the book. Sure there are plenty of lovely scenes and the mystery is laid on just as thick, but at the end of the day, nothing is answered and there are barely any new questions. It was basically just a remashing of GOFL, which does me no good. Oh well, the middle books are always the hardest, aren't they? In order to fix its limpness, I've taken some planned parts from the third book and added them into the second. This significantly changes and enhances Nathaniel's role in the book, which is as it should be. He always seems like the most neglected character, which is silly because he's the one with the most to offer. I'm nearing completion of chapter one and I can't wait to move along with this story. 

In the meantime, I am being a bit distracted by another project. I don't want to talk about it too much just yet. The project is a planned trilogy and I'm in the process of outlining the entire thing. I've made it through the first book and find that I quite like it. The characters appeal to me and the plot, while rough at the moment, looks like it's going to be an interesting challenge. The general mood of this project should be much lighter than GOFL, and without the bittersweet fringes of Loch Raven, so we'll see if I'm able to pull it off properly. I won't begin any actual work on the story until I finish outlining the whole thing, which, at the rate I'm going, shouldn't be much longer now...

Very soon, I hope to be adding a book cover section to this blog. I would very much like to start helping authors fulfill their book cover needs. In the meantime, here is a selection of some of my work.

Je suis perdu

kelsey_lovesfusionphoto | Flickr

I feel a little lost again, writing-wise. I was kind of excited by all of the support Loch Raven generated. I even sat down and hammered out an outline for the rest of the book, and managed to finish the last chapter I wrote. I've got tons and tons of lovely little scenes waiting to be written, images in my mind that need to be put into words.

But still I can't get Ghosts of Fallen Leaves out of my head. It might have something to do with the fact that it has dominated my creative mind for the past two/three years. If my fingers were on the keyboard, they were undoubtedly working on Ghosts. I must have made a billion ebooks of the thing just so I could review the story on my Nook. Countless hours were spent scouring the internet looking for something to use as a cover. Money was spent, for Christ's sake. 

And when I go to bed at night, it's the story that pops into my head. I mull it over and over again, imagine scenes and refine dialog, all while I should be falling asleep. 

I'm still obsessed. The plot for book two is taunting me and last night was the first time in a few weeks that I really really wanted to start working on it. I might still work on it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Or tonight? Or the next minute, for that matter?

I'm not confident enough in myself to work on two stories at the same time. I worry that the voices will meld and part of the reason why Loch Raven exists is because it was supposed to be the anti-Ghosts (to a point, anyway). The last thing I need is for Willa to start sounding like Becca. They're different people. (Who probably wouldn't get along, now that I think about it... They have absolutely nothing in common.) 

I guess I'll just have to ruminate. And stop writing blog posts just for the heck of it. In the meantime, here's something French(Canadian) for you. The song was inspired by The Little Prince, a book I hated. The song is catchy as hell, though. I love singing it in my butchered French. The sheep crack me up.

I feel so lost.

BookCountry.com

bookcountry.com

Let me start at the beginning. About four/five days ago, ShelfAwareness sent out another one of their awesome newsletters. This one featured an article on the launch of BookCountry.com. It's a website run by a subsidiary of Penguin Group, as in the publisher. It's main goal is to be a writer's community, where people post their writing so it can be read and commented on. The goal is to have a bunch of writers interacting with each other, reading and critiquing each other's work. It's a great idea, so of course I signed up. 

One of the catches to making your own work viewable to the public is that you must review three other user's work first. Of course I totally get the impetus behind this requirement. If everyone just dumped their stuff off so other's could read it, where would the motivation be for anyone to review anything? Since the site is new, however, I did have a problem finding content that I actually wanted to read. I think I'll keep checking back, but for now, I've put my Book Country account on hold. 

Inkpop.com

In the meantime I found a similar site for writers, called Inkpop.com. This site is run by HarperCollins, more specifically tied into its HarperTeen division, since Inkpop is decidedly for teens and teen writing. From what I've been able to tell, the majority of its users are teenagers (there's no actual age limit, so that's why a dinosaur like yours truly is trolling around) and they post everything from fiction and its myriad of subcategories, to poetry and nonfiction. Inkpop allows users to pick five books as their Top Picks. From what I understand, rankings based on a ratio of Top Picks vs. Top Pickers or Trendsetters, dictates the ranking of a book. The kicker is--and this is how Inkpop greatly differs from Book Country--the homepage keeps track of the top five ranked books and at the end of the month, editors from HarperCollins read these top five, entire MS or the first 10,000 words, whichever comes first. 

inkpop.com

What HarperCollins is doing, of course, is using the Inkpop community to separate the wheat from the chaff for them. This is a smart move. Everyday publishers receive piles of manuscripts for review, and these are mostly from agented writers. They'd be drowning in paper if they all accepted unsolicited manuscripts. With a community at Inkpop at their disposal, the teen branch of the publishing house has a whole fleet of volunteer assistants (who happen to be their cheif consumers to boot) reading manuscripts and either giving them their seal of approval or not. All with the aim of getting reviewed by an editor at the end of the month, with possible publishing contracts to follow. 

It's a great idea. One Penguin decided not to do. They expressly say they cannot guarantee anyone of any significance will ever read anything on the site. Of course, that might change, but who knows? The one thing I absolutely loved about Inkpop was the wealth of choices available. The site has been around for a year or so and it is heavily active, so there are tons of projects to choose from for your reading pleasure. I've already poked around at few things and I can't wait to dive in a bit deeper.

This is when things started to go south...

read

Four days ago, I posted the first four chapters of GHOSTS OF FALLEN LEAVES on Inkpop. Literally within minutes I received a short, positive review. A day later, another, more detailed review showed up. For not having done anything to promote it, I was pretty proud of myself. My ranking hovered somewhere around 1040, and one of the sites Top Trendsetters actually picked my book, so it even lingered on the homepage for a day or so. 

Fame is, of course, fleeting, or in this case, non-existent, so I didn't really expect much to come out of this without promotion. In the past four days, the book's ranking has risen to 914, which is awesome. It's currently on seven watch lists and ten waiting lists. No new reviews, but oh well. I feel pretty good about it, since I didn't actively try to promote it or anything. My goal wasn't to make it to the top five and have my MS read by an editor. If that happened, YAY! but that wasn't my goal. I still felt good about preparing this book for publishing later next month.

read

The issue began, however, when I decided to submit another bit of writing. A few years ago, after working on the first draft of GHOSTS, I started a story called LOCH RAVEN. The setting was loosely based on a reservoir lake near my home with the same name. After writing something dark like GHOSTS, I decided to embark on something light, though still paranormal. LOCH RAVEN turned out to be a summery story with lovely characters I loved writing about. It was so unlike GHOSTS, which is why I think I like working on it so much. It got some fond reviews from my friends, but I never finished it because, firstly, I had to pick a project and it lost, and secondly, I had written myself into a hole. By the time I got around to working on a rough draft, I realized it would require some decent amount of re-writing and so I dropped the project. 

I'd always envisioned LOCH RAVEN as the next project I'd go back to, once I'd gotten GHOSTS firmly off the ground. And so I submitted it to Inkpop, since I figured someone might read it and enjoy it. The problem is...

People are enjoying it.

In less than 24 hours, LOCH RAVEN has done better and gotten more attention than GHOSTS has done in four days. 26 pick lists, 5 individual comments, 4 related messages and an overall ranking of 628. IN LESS THAN A DAY. 

*insert barrage of expletives here*

EPIC FAIL.

My problem, and ultimately my question for you...

Am I concentrating on the wrong project for my debut?

  

Progress? A Writer's Rant

Look at that mess...

I've been staring down the final chapters of my book for quite a while now. I've got it all outlined (for the most part) and I know exactly what I need to write. 

But I can't bring myself to write anything. 

I think I'm worrying about the fact that the denouement is somewhat long, which can be a complete turn-off for some readers. I love that word, by the way. Denouement. I took French for six years, so I tend to like saying the French loan words with my crappy French accent. It makes me laugh. 

All in all, I've taken way too long to edit this book. I wrote the first (horrible) draft over the span of six months, and that was with easily two months' worth of breaks thrown in the mix. Since then, I've been editing it for two years. TWO YEARS. Granted, during those two years I've completely rewritten the darn thing, so I guess that counts as much as writing a whole new book. 

This final rewrite has been difficult and miraculously easy all at the same time. About a month or two ago I had an eureka moment. By adding a new character and a certain background story, I had somehow managed to make all of those awkward edges smooth out and work perfectly. It was as if that little plot point had existed in the story all along, but I had just forgotten to write it in. Once I worked it into the existing manuscript, everything started flowing very nicely. It made me grin from ear to ear, it truly did. 

I've also done the very naughty thing of taking time out to outline the next book in the series. So there it is now, sitting on my hard drive and in my brain, trying to distract me from finishing the first book. I need to start thinking of it as the carrot on the end of the stick. "Now, now, half-witted author. You can start writing book two once you've finished book one."

I'm starting to feel myself drowning in doubt again, which does me no good. Every time I write a new draft, I start off thinking it's a billion times better than the last one, but then I slowly grow numb to its wonders and I begin to doubt the quality all over again. Will it catch the reader's interest? Is this scene thrilling? Are my characters likable? Blah blah blah. 

Oh, and another little seemingly insignificant thing that is bothering me? It's so short. Like, holy cow that might just be a novella short. This bothers me to no end because no one could ever accuse me of brevity when it comes to my writing. The reason why it is short is because I've made the decision to break the original novel up into three parts because the original was too long. Like, 200,000 words worth of too long. But here I have part one probably clocking in under 70k. What the heck...?

cover design © h.m.resch

I know I just need pick myself up by my bootstraps and soldier on and whatnot. If I plow through and just finish the darn thing, then I can make it pretty during the final editing stage. 

Either way, come hell or high water, this book will be published sometime in June. In the mean time I've pretty much figured out the cover. This is still a work in progress, but I don't expect it to change too much before the release. 

Sorry for the ranting. I don't have very many people I can talk to about my writing so sometimes it just spews out and I can't stop it. I hope to have a chapter or two up for perusal sometime soon. Keep checking back and thanks if you actually read this far! <3