Jeanie Writes Genre

Wednesday: Breakthrough! Epiphany! Hallelujah! Rejoice! No, but really, as I was writing Ceredwyn's back story I had a revelation about her and her mother that will tie the whole story together. I love it when I find out new stuff about my own stories. That's the stuff that makes writing fun.

Yesterday: Nada. It was a busy, busy day, and then I went home and crashed.

Today: Nada some more. I'm using my free time to research podcasting and work on graphics for my Etsy shop.

This weekend: I have a short story about Ceredwyn in mind, and I think I'm going to go ahead and write it. I'll post it here if I do. Otherwise, I'll work on Michael's scene.

Labels: Hero+Factor, journaling

Working on: Hero Factor

Yesterday: 519 words of forward momentum on Michael's plot thread. Screwed around at picnik and made this:



Today: Get to know Ceredwyn so I can put her to work.

Tomorrow: Back to Michael's troll-dismembering scene.

Labels: Hero+Factor, journaling, progress+reports, writing life

What I'm working on: The Hero Factor

Yesterday's progress: wrote 457 words, finishing out Sam/Claire scene (a day too late for the deadline at Our Eloquence, boo!).

Today's plan: Backtrack on outline to where I left off with Michael and start next scene in his plot thread. Do at least two 15 minute sprints (approx. 500 words total).

For tomorrow: Flesh out Ceredwyn's character. More sprints.

Labels: Hero+Factor, journaling, writing life

I just hooked up my Alphasmart and uploaded everything I've written on it in the last week. It came out to five pages, which is better than I expected. My total word count now stands at 52,550.

I'm sure the two of you who read this blog appreciate the updates. ;)

At-home writing has gotten easier since late last week when my husband and I finally hauled our sorry selves into the twenty-first century and acquired our very first mp3 players. I've had this thing for less than a week and I already don't know how I ever lived without it. Apart from being able to carry my entire CD collection in my pocket, which in itself is awesome, and apart from being able to load podcasts onto it to listen to while I do the more tedious aspects of my day job that take me away from my computer, I'm finding that the best thing about it is how it functions as a virtual office door. When my husband sees me typing with my earbuds plugged in, he doesn't interrupt me. Somehow, the typing alone was never enough to merit observance of my workspace, but typing PLUS earphones apparently means I'm really most seriously working and am not to be interrupted. Which is fine by me. I never would have achieved those five pages otherwise.

Labels: Hero+Factor, progress+reports, writing life

Because I'm in a sharing mood.

***
Claire drove. She didn't listen to the radio. She didn't sing along with her mp3 player or make phone calls or dictate notes to herself or any of the other things she usually did in her car. She just drove. If somebody asked her, she couldn't tell them where she went. Sometime after dark, she ended up in her own driveway. She didn't know how long she'd been driving.

On autopilot, she went inside, went to her kitchen and made a sandwich. Then she left it on the counter and went to take a shower. Standing under the spray, she had a vague, dreamlike recollection of showering with Michael. Or had it been Not Michael? The dragons from her dream flashed through her memory, and she shivered. She shut off the water and went to get dressed.

Back in the kitchen, she took a bite of her sandwich, then spit it out. Her appetite was gone. She wrapped the remains and put them in the fridge. There, she spotted an open can of tuna, and took it out. She stared at it, wondering if she should toss it. She was about to when she heard a meow.

Startled, she spun to see Sam running up to her. Still meowing, he stood on his hind legs to get a better whiff of the tuna. Claire bent down and scooped him up. His collar jingled and he yowled in protest as she held him up by his armpits and stared into his eyes. Blank, hungry, aloof and annoyed cat eyes started back. Brown-green eyes, not yellow. This wasn't Sam.

He'd replaced the cat. That's how she had seen them both together.

This strange new cat let out a low, warning growl. Claire let him drop to the floor, then she turned around and dry heaved into the sink. She hadn't just lost a lover. She'd lost a pet, too. She'd lost the last week of her life to a lie. Absently, she uncovered the tuna and set it down for the hungry cat. Then she grabbed her keys, returned to her car, and pointed it at Timmy's. She needed a drink.

She needed a lot of drinks.

The bar was fairly crowded for a weeknight. Sickness returned to the pit of her stomach as she walked through the door, remembering the last time she'd been there with Michael. Not Michael. The other Michael.

That was crazy. But it sure explained a hell of a lot about that night.

With a shudder, she swallowed and found a seat at the bar. She grabbed a handful of boiled peanuts and chewed on them to settle her stomach while she waited for the bartender to take her order. By the time he came over, wiping out a pint glass with a towel, she had eaten them all. She opened her mouth to order a gin and diet tonic, double on the gin, but the bartender cut her off. "'Bout time you got here," he said, and jerked his chin in the direction of a table behind her. "That guy's a reporter for the Inquirer."

Not looking back, Claire sighed with impatience. "So?"

"So, I thought you'd want to get your guy outta here before he ends up front page in all the supermarkets."

This time, when he did that chin-jerk thing again in another direction, Claire turned to look. Michael--or somebody who looked exactly like him--sat alone in the back corner, obviously hammered. She watched in horror as he sang along with the jukebox at the top of his lungs, annoying his neighbors and sloshing beer all over himself, the table, the floor and some of said neighbors as he swung his stein back and forth to the music.

A bouncer near the door also saw him. The huge, burly man started his way, passing right by the reporter. Claire knew that that wasn't Michael. She also knew that everyone else would believe it was Michael. She knew she had to do something. She wanted to down a few shots of tequila first, but she knew there wasn't time; so she hopped down from the bench and intercepted the bouncer. "Please," she said, laying a hand gently on the guy's enormous arm, and he stopped. "Let me handle him."

The guy looked back and forth between her and... the other one, and shook his head skeptically. "I don't know, lady. He looks like a handful."

Claire fished her emergency cash out of her back pocket and pressed it into his palm. "Please? I'll get him out of here. Just make sure that guy doesn't see him."

The bouncer looked back at the tabloid reporter, then at Claire, then at the money in his hand. Finally, he nodded. "Five minutes, then I'm taking over."

"Thank you," she said. As he moved back in the direction of the reporter, Claire took a deep breath and went to the back corner table.

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: excerpts, Hero+Factor

I managed to cram a couple of word sprints into my day, and as such wrote over fifteen hundred words of novel. THF now stands at over 50,000 words, which I think is a little over half way finished. I hit the big emotional climax of Act 2, and now I'm transitioning into Act 3, which will be lots and lots of action mixed with angst. The angsty parts I should fly through; the action will plod a little more slowly. I know it sounds like that should be the other way around, but I have to see a fight or a battle scene clearly in my brain before I can write it, and it always takes me a while to mentally stage and choreograph it and get a clear picture. It's going to be a pretty epic battle, too. It's daunting. I am daunted.

I had a minorly epic showdown for the climax of This Old Haunt, and I got through that by listening to the battle music from "Chosen" over and over on a loop. It might serve me well to watch that again, to get a refresher course on pacing and fight choreography. But I need to be in the mood to have a good cry first. So far I've only been able to watch that episode once since it originally aired, and it didn't hurt me any less. But this isn't a Buffy blog, so... moving on.

At any rate, it feels a bit like I'm heading into the home stretch. It's a long home stretch, but it's been a long marathon. I'm getting my wind back, and that'll see me through.

Labels: Hero+Factor, progress+reports, writing life

I haven't written as consistently as I would have liked this week (unless you count the mad blogging I've been doing), but I have at least written a little over a thousand words on my novel. That averages out to about 250 words a day, so I guess I'm still making my quota.

I've been too busy getting my new blog online and established this week to participate at Ficlets. I'm kind of bummed about that, but I'm sure I'll get back to it next week.

This is going to be a hellishly busy weekend. I've got shopping, cooking and baking to do tomorrow for my sister's baby shower, then Saturday is the shower, followed by clean-up, and Sunday we might (hopefully) go out to see Cloverfield (whee!). Also, somewhere in there I need to fit in finishing the baby blanket I'm making for my sister. Somehow I'm going to try to fit in some quality time with the novel. Thank God for my Alphasmart.

Labels: excuses, Hero+Factor, writing life

I'm finally starting to recover from NaNo and get back into a writing groove, albeit not nearly so frenetic or productive a groove as Nano. And that's fine by me. I made excellent progress this weekend on finishing up the scene that's been giving me fits for the last few weeks (by the way, regarding the epiphany I thought I had about the story that was hanging me up, I've decided to ignore it; my muse and I have agreed to disagree on the matter), and at the moment I'm pretty happy with it. I have no idea what my weekend word count was--I wrote it on my Alphasmart, and I forgot to bring the connector cable to work, so I can't upload it, and I'm not curious enough to bother counting words manually.

I'm going back to my 250 word daily goal. It won't get my novel finished in a month, but it will keep me plugging along, and if I keep doing that I've got to get to the end sometime. And that's all that really matters.

Labels: Hero+Factor, progress+reports, writing life

Hopes: I will finish The Hero Factor. Dammit.

Dreams: I will finish The Hero Factor and get both it AND This Old Haunt all rewritten, cleaned up and presentable and will sell them both for enough to obliterate my student loans, hopefully before it's time to also start paying off my husband's student loans. Yes, dream big, children. Dream big.

Plans: Write daily, and see what happens.

Goals: Finish THF, obviously. Try to get an agent. See what happens.

Etc.: My first goal-and consequently the second-is frustrated by the fact that I think I have to change something pretty major in my story; which is just frustrating all the way around, actually. But I'm coming to believe that the story will be much stronger for the change. Stupid contrary imagination, waiting until I've written an entire plot thread/character arc to figure out a better way to do it. Harumph, I say. Ha-rumph.

Labels: Hero+Factor, writing life

I'm not writing, y'all. I'm just...not. Well, I am a little--a very little--I've managed a thousand words this week by dribbling them out here and there a bit at a time. But I don't have anywhere near the momentum or motivation that I had during WriMo.

I'm guessing the reason is a combination of factors. For one thing, we lost our power this week in the massive ice storm (it's back on now, though, as of last night), and it's been too cold, dark and depressing to write. And whenever I managed to get online I was so starved for entertainment and social contact that I couldn't bring myself to do much more than play and talk.

I also think it was a mistake to sign up for NaNoFiMo. WriMo kind of left me burned out, and it probably would have been smarter to take more than a couple of days off to recover. I mean, I wrote over 200 pages in three weeks (I got a late start thanks to Bratwurstgate). I deserved to rest.

The other thing--and this is the biggie--is that I'm trying to write a crucial scene. I've mentioned writing other important scenes that I've envisioned for a long time, but this is THE scene, the one that's the reason I decided to write this book in the first place, and I'm feeling a lot of pressure to get it right.

So I think I'm going to quietly bow out of FiMo and go back to my goal of 250 words a day. Maybe once I get through this scene I'll be able to pick up the pace, but, it's been a crazy, crazy couple of months. For the time being, I think I need to ease up on myself.

Labels: Hero+Factor, writing life

You would think that having a long weekend capped off with a snow day and being trapped indoors with no power and nothing better to do than write would culminate in a buttload of words written. In my case, at least, you would be wrong.

I actually managed about 2,500 words over the weekend, which was more than I thought I did; but I wasted a lot of prime writing time shivering under about 30 pounds of blankets, listening to the sky fall and praying that it didn't fall on my house. Which, as it turns out, is not all that conducive to motivating the muse to move. Or the typing fingers, for that matter.

I need to step it up if I'm going to meet my NaNoFiMo goal. As of today, I'm about 6,000 words behind. But I've got a couple of important scenes under my belt, scenes I've been thinking about and envisioning for a few years now. They didn't turn out exactly as originally imagined (when do they ever?), but still, it feels pretty great to have 'em done.

Labels: Hero+Factor, nano, nanofimo

My NaNoFiMo project is still going strong... er, sorta if you don't count the fact that I haven't written anything today. I'm not haranguing you with word count updates this time around. If you're curious about that, there's a ticker over on the sidebar that's tracking my progress. It says my goal is 70,000 words, but that's only because the FiMo goal is at least 30,000, and I started with around 39,000. I think the finished novel will be considerably longer than that, though.

But I'll be damned if I'm not going to finish this draft this year. It's not like there's anything else going on this month--oh, wait.

Labels: Hero+Factor, nano, nanofimo

The little bells jingled as he padded through the city, but still no one took notice of him. He made his way, unmolested by human, dog or other, to the alley near the studio where he had first conceived his plans. Once there, he blended right in; just another stray cat rooting through the trash. Of course, his prey wasn't a rat or a casually tossed out meal, and his purpose wasn't to be fed.

He didn't blame Claire for the collar, or hold its humiliation against her. It was his own fault that she found it necessary to keep track of him. He'd known he wouldn't be able to keep up this charade for ever. The bells heralded the end of it as surely as they heralded his arrival.

It was simple enough to slip out of the collar. Then all he needed was to wait. The other cats mostly ignored him, and he them. They weren't what he needed.

Then, at last, he spied his subject. A solid black cat, nearly identical to his present form, leaped down from a fire escape onto a nearby garbage bin. Its scent told the Pooka that it was male. Perfect. The Pooka stole silently to the bin, waited for the cat's attention to be thoroughly engrossed in the remains of a sandwich, and changed. His human hand shot out inhumanly fast and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck. It hissed and spat at him as he retrieved the collar, scratching and biting as he fastened the damned thing around its neck. "Sorry, cat," he muttered, "but better you than me."

What to do next, he realized, he hadn't really thought through. He was naked in his current form, and trying to carry an angry cat home on foot was likely to be painful, not to mention painfully conspicuous. None of his other forms were conducive to safely conveying the struggling creature, either; he really needed hands for that. He would have to leave the cat and come back for it later. Looking around for something to hold it, he spotted a pile of empty boxes and milk crates. He righted one of the crates and stuffed the still-protesting cat inside, covering it with a flattened cardboard box and stacking more crates on top to weigh it down. "That should hold you."

"Dare I ask what you intend to do with that creature?" a voice asked behind him.

The Pooka suddenly became acutely aware of the vulnerability of his human nakedness, but he resisted the impulse to change. Instead he turned and, squaring his shoulders in defiance, faced his interrogator. "Is it any concern of yours?"

A tall, pale man with long, dark hair stood watching him, his narrow face a mixture of amused affection and pity. He wore a long, high-collared coat, belted at the waist, and held a pair of gloves in one hand.. Only his blazing yellow eyes betrayed his inhumanity. He walked forward and circled the Pooka, studying him, making him feel a level of humiliation that the little blue jingle-bell collar couldn't even touch. "I had heard you'd been bound by the Princess, but I had no idea she would place you in such low circumstance. To force you to impersonate a mortal." He didn't add anything else. He didn't need to. The disdain the notion inspired was evident in his tone.

"Aren't you impersonating a mortal as we speak?" asked the Pooka.

Standing in front of him, his brother shook his head in disgust. "I'm wearing a human form of my own devising. You know the difference. Still," he sighed, looking the Pooka up and down, "this body suits you. It's strong, well-proportioned and not unattractive. Although I'd have been tempted to make it taller."

"Careful, brother. You almost sound as though you approve."

An indignant snort told him all he needed to know. Still, his brother had to rub it in. "Approval is something you lost long ago. I'd have thought you'd have been devising ways to win it back all this time. You never fail to disappoint me, little brother."

"I never strive to do otherwise."

A tight smile crossed his brother's lips. "Most disappointing is the woman."

Tension coiled throughout the Pooka's entire body. "What woman?"

The look his brother gave him was both knowing and irritated. "Are you so disenchanted with your own race that you would risk the very essence of your being for a taste of this forbidden fruit?"

"I know not of which you speak," the Pooka stated flatly, "and neither do you."

"Please, brother. Don't embarrass yourself. My own eyes spied you with her." He sighed, and shook his head, his mouth drawn into a grimace of disgust. "I had thought you learned your lesson the last time."

His brother's tone was sharpened with a dangerous edge. Another sensation filled the Pooka, tightening the coils within him. It was not entirely foreign to him, but it was rare enough that it took him a moment to recognize it for what it was: fear. The feeling angered him, and he latched onto that anger, nursed it until it grew and overtook the other. Then he laughed. "You're making a fool of yourself, brother. The woman is necessary to this facade. She is an accessory. Nothing more."

"Is she now?"

Putting on his best air of nonchalance, he shrugged. He felt a pang of discomfort at denying Claire, but it was necessary. He had to believe himself that she meant nothing to him if he was to convince his brother. Her life might very well depend on it. "She is involved with the mortal I'm impersonating. She knows him well, knows his schedule and habits, and has proven extremely useful in helping me keep up the charade. She has no idea that I am not who I claim to be, and if the Princess' plan is successful, the real Chambers will return and she'll be none the wiser." He tilted his head and looked to the sky as if to consider. "Although, it does occur to me that Chambers might never return. That certainly wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. I could go on enjoying his life as long as it holds amusement for me. Chambers is a celebrity. In this country, that practically makes him royalty."

"Well spoken, brother. And what of his woman? If he doesn't return, do you intend to make her yours as well?"

She is already more mine than she was ever his, his mind screamed. The thought startled him. He had no idea where it had sprung from. He hoped his brother hadn't seen him flinch. He raised an eyebrow. "The thought never crossed my mind. Really, brother. Her usefulness is far outweighed by her tediousness. It's not as though there's anything remarkable about the girl."

"Really? I thought she was quite a beauty, as mortals go." He smirked, and let his glance flicker downward. "When I saw you with her at the bar, your borrowed anatomy seemed to agree."

The Pooka thought he couldn't be more irritated. As it turned out, he could, but he didn't know which irritated him more; that his brothers were spying on him, or that he had been so wrapped up in Claire that he hadn't noticed. "All part of the act," he lied.

"I hope so." He moved into the Pooka's space and rapped his chest with the gloves. Biting his lip, his brother looked upward as though trying to remember something. "I can still hear the other girl... what was her name? Persimmon tree?"

"Persephone." The correction escaped before he could stop it.

"Ah, yes. That makes more sense, as human names go. I can still hear sweet, lovely Persephone as she was dragged away, pleading for your intervention. It was extraordinarily grating. All those piercing shrieks... I'd hate to have to experience it again."

The Pooka managed to keep perfectly still, all in an effort not to kill his brother then and there. Fratricide would ensure he was never allowed back home. "No, brother," he said, his tone cordial and absent of the coldness he felt, "I wouldn't want you to suffer so."

His brother smiled. "I'm glad to hear you say so." Then he frowned, examining the Pooka, and swept some debris off of his shoulder with the gloves. "I am doing this for your own good, of course. You may be a source of unending shame to our entire race, but it's still my place to look after you."

"To look after me?" the Pooka asked. "Or to make certain I don't bring even more shame to the family?"

His brother smiled. "Both." Then he exploded into a fluttering flock of blackbirds.

The Pooka watched as his much older and more talented brother made his exit, and rolled his eyes. He had always been in love with his own theatrics. Only once the birds were out of sight did all of the tension, anger and fear in him uncoil and allow him to relax. Bowing his head, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He knew it was a human gesture of frustration, but it still made him feel marginally better.

They were watching him.

They were watching Claire.

As if it wasn't bad enough having to bow to Alathea's wishes and fulfill their bargain, now he also had to worry about pleasing the family -- or at least not displeasing them enough that they would see Claire as a true threat. As much as it pained him to have her angry with him, perhaps it was for the best. The sooner he delivered this decoy cat to her, the better. Then he'd be able to keep a safe distance and ensure that his brothers would keep away from her.

That prospect caused an empty feeling in his belly that he normally only felt upon thinking of home.

He opened his eyes, and sighed. Then he strode over to the crate and snatched the cat out of it. "Change of plan," he said, dropping it to the ground before it could scratch him. It hissed and ran down the alley. The pooka ran after it. He leaped into the air and flapped his great, black eagle's wings, then swooped down to grab the cat gently but firmly in both talons before turning toward his neighborhood.

He hoped Chambers would return home soon.

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: excerpts, Hero+Factor

CHAPTER ONE

The silver blade sliced the air as Simon Caufield swung his axe. It connected with the demon's chest. Black, scaly skin split and fissured as the body tore itself apart. The creature unleashed an unholy shriek, and then was silenced in an explosion of blood and goo.



Simon bent to pick up his axe. He wiped the blade on the grass, then rested it against his shoulder. He spat out a glob of slime that had gotten in his mouth. "One down," he said, his gaze scanning the cemetery. "Twenty to go."



"Cut!"



Michael Chambers spat again, and wiped more goo off his face. "This stuff is nasty," he complained, then reconsidered and licked his finger. "Tastes all right, though."



"It's mostly corn syrup," said an effects supervisor as he handed Michael a towel.



"That looked really cool," said Michael.



"Thanks!" He launched into an overly technical explanation of how he'd rigged the dummy to explode, but before Michael had to feign understanding the director interrupted.



"All right, let's get the stunt guys in here and do it again! Chambers, great job. You're done. Go clean up."



Michael shrugged out of Simon Caufield's trademark leather coat and handed it and the axe over to his stunt double. "Try not to get that stuff in your eyes," he warned him. "It stings." He draped the towel over his shoulder and headed to the craft service table to grab some coffee before he hit the showers.



"I need to stay with you for a while."



Michael paused, taking in the sight of Claire standing beside the table, holding out coffee and hope. A large suitcase sat next to a cat carrier at her feet. Michael's heart did a little dance, but he told himself it was for the coffee. "Why?"



"Plague. Pestilence. The usual."



He took the coffee and drank half of it before encouraging her to elaborate. He'd had a long day shooting action scenes and stunt pickups. He was tired and sore and he had a feeling he was about to need all the strength he could get. "Come again?"



"Bugs," she clarified, picking at the deli tray. "Not just a couple of cockroaches. That I could handle. We're talking many varieties of big, black, hairy creatures. Biblical stuff. It's the End Times in my apartment." She nibbled a slice of cheese, and then looked at it thoughtfully. "And there were rats."



"Rats?"



"Well, a rat. But isn't that enough? It was huge, bigger than my cat. Who, by the way, needs to come with me to your house while my landlord has the place fumigated. I hope that's okay."



Michael slowly sipped the rest of his coffee, buying himself a minute to think. Saying no would make him a bastard, and it wasn't like he didn't have the room. She still had an office in his house, even. But he still slept on one side of the bed and kept his toothbrush on one side of the bathroom drawer, even though it had been a year since she'd moved out. Having her back full-time, even for a few days... he didn't know if he could handle that.



Of course, she didn't seem to have a problem with it. Man up, Michael, he told himself. The bitterness he swallowed didn't all come from the coffee. He smiled. "Of course."



She smiled back. "Knew I could count on you." She knelt to open the cat carrier. "Hear that, Sam?" she said, pulling out twenty pounds of black fur. "We're not homeless." She stood up and cradled the fat bastard like an infant. It turned its yellow-eyed glare on Michael.



"You named him Sam?"



"Yeah. Don't you think he looks like a Sam?"



"I guess. Hey, kitty." Michael held a finger up to the cat, who gave it a perfunctory sniff before turning his haughty little nose up. That was gratitude for you. The cat had been a stray hanging around the set a few weeks ago. Somehow it found its way inside Michael's trailer, where he allowed it to stay while Claire tried to find it a home. He was ready to take it to a shelter himself when she finally decided to give it her home. He definitely wasn't a cat person.



Claire held the cat out to him. "Wanna hold him a minute?"



Michael took a step back and put up his hands. "Yeah, probably not, what with the slime."



"Oh." Claire looked him up and down, noticing his appearance for the first time. She wrinkled her nose. "Ew."



"Michael?"



Michael turned to see a woman approaching. She was an older woman, plainly dressed, with stringy, gray hair that hung past her shoulders. As she reached him, she smiled. "It's you!"



The cat let out a low growl, and then hissed for no apparent reason. Cats. Go figure. Claire stooped to stuff him back in his cage, but the woman seemed oblivious. She reached a hand toward Michael's face. "It's really you!"



He intercepted her hand and shook it. "Yeah, it's me. Do you belong with a tour group?"



She stared down at his hand a moment before clasping it in both of hers. "Don't you know me?"



"Um." He looked to Claire for a little help, but she had stepped away and was speaking quietly into her cell phone. "Did I meet you last year at ComiCon?"



"Michael." She gazed up at him, her eyes filling up with tears. "Sweetheart, I'm your mother."



Michael just stood there a moment, his mouth hanging open like it hoped to trap some appropriate words. "Right," he said, finally, and smiled. He hoped it was a compassionate smile. He leaned closer to the woman and said, gently, "Ma'am, my mother lives in Tulsa."



"No." The mystery woman shook her head furiously. "No. She doesn't know what you are. She can't help you. I'm the only one who can protect you. I kept you safe! But they didn't get you, so it's all right. I can be with you now, Michael. We can finally be together!" Her nails started digging into his hands.



"Okay," he said, prying himself out of her grip. "It's okay. Just calm down."



Behind him, Claire snapped her phone shut. She stepped forward. "Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to leave." As she spoke a couple of security guards came running up.



"Sorry," one of them was saying. "We don't know how she got in here."



"No!" the woman screamed as they grabbed her by the arms.



"Hey, don't be so rough," Michael told them, but they were already dragging her away. She screamed his name the entire time. Michael watched helplessly, feeling nothing but pity for the woman.



"Hey." Claire took hold of his arm and squeezed. "You okay?"



"Yeah." Michael shook his head. "Wow."



"Yeah. That's a whole butt-load of crazy right there."



Michael nodded. "My mother. That's a new one. Still, not as scary as that lady who goes around to conventions claiming she's my wife."



Claire chuckled. "That time in Chicago I thought she was going to tear my hair out. You've got some rabid admirers there, Fangirl-bait."



He shrugged. "Goes with the territory, I guess."



"Yeah. Anyway, that reminds me. Your actual mother keeps calling. She left about five messages on your machine this morning."



"Is she okay?"



"She said it wasn't an emergency and you shouldn't worry about her."



Michael rolled his eyes. "She always says that."



"I know. I called her back and she said she's fine. She just wants to talk to you."



Michael sighed. "She probably has a question about her car or something. She calls me for all that kind of stuff now."



Claire nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's tough for her. Your dad really took care of her."



"Yeah."



A moment passed in silence, then Claire spoke up and changed the subject before it could turn awkward. "Your agent also called. He's sending over a couple of screenplays he wants you to consider. Said they'll build your indie cred."



Michael smirked. "Translation: the pay's crap."



Claire shrugged. "What else are you going to do with your summer?"



"Good point."



"Anyway, I've got to run." She picked up the cat carrier with a grunt and pulled up the handle on her suitcase. "I've got a ton of errands to get done, but I'll drop my stuff off first. Do you have dinner plans?"



"You tell me. You keep my schedule."



Claire grinned. "You do have dinner plans. I'll pick up some groceries and cook us something."



"Stroganoff?" he asked hopefully.



"I'll see what I can arrange."



"Excellent. Tell me again why I didn't marry you?"



It was out before he could stop it, and now it was too late to take it back. He managed not to cringe, even as Claire's artfully plucked eyebrow lifted in a "Don't go there " arch. "It's the least I can do," she said, mercifully ignoring his idiocy. She picked up the pet carrier, but studied him before going. "Are you really okay?"


"I'm fine. I mean, that wasn't exactly normal," he said, indicating the direction in which security had taken the woman, "but I'm fine. Really."


Claire nodded, but she didn't look convinced. "Do me a favor and get security to walk to your car, okay?"


"Claire--"


"Okay?" She wasn't going to let it go.


Michael sighed. "Okay."


She nodded again, and this time she seemed satisfied. "See you later."



"Right. Later." He held up his hand in a lazy wave as she walked away. At least she still cares, he thought as he watched her go. Of course, that's kind of her job now. Once she was gone, he closed his eyes and sighed. Dumb-ass. Dredging up ancient history wasn't going to make her stay at his place comfortable for either of them. Or their working relationship, for that matter, and he couldn't afford to lose her as a personal assistant. She was just too damn good.


It was shaping up to be one hell of a week.

***

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: excerpts, Hero+Factor

I originally posted this over at Sparkle Motion, but I'm copying it over here, this being the writing blog and all. By the way, the novel is still progressing nicely, and closing in on 40,000 words. I expected to be a bit further along by now, but I'm working on a battle scene. Battle scenes, like love scenes, always slow me down. I think it's all the choreography.

Anyway. To the original post, and the hook which, looking at it now, I think probably can lose the first two paragraphs if the third one is sufficiently fleshed out. It can definitely stand to be whittled down. Thankfully (I guess?) I'm still months away from needing a query letter, so there's still plenty of time to work on it.

***

Yesterday, Miss Snark posted a question about how one would go about writing a short hook for a novel with multiple protagonists. Being that my novel has two main protagonists who kind of serve as shadow selves of each other, this is a question I've been pondering myself. When I was writing my hook for my Crapometer entry back in December, I couldn't figure out how to fit both of my protags and their distinct storylines into 300 words or less, so I ended up picking the one that gives the best idea of the overall plot. That didn't go over so well, and it gave a lot of people the wrong idea of what my book's about.

This new discussion got me to obsessing about my hook again. It may seem a little premature to do so, seeing as how the book's only a third of the way done, but as I'm sure I've said before here at some point, I think writing a hook is a good exercise for honing your plot and figuring out exactly what your story's about. Plus, it's motivating. At least for me.

So after obsessing on it all night, I think I've got it: a hook that includes both of my protagonists and their separate stories, as well as the overarching plot that combines them. I did it in about 400 words. I'd like to whittle it down by 50-100 words if I can figure out how to do so without losing the integrity of the thing. At least I've still got plenty of time to pare it down.

As Michael Chambers wraps up the last day of shooting his hit supernatural TV series before it goes on summer hiatus, he's looking forward to some down time before beginning publicity tours and summer film projects; but when his ex-girlfriend and current personal assistant shows up with her cat in tow needing a place to stay, he's too nice a guy to refuse her. When he accidentally lets her cat run away, he's too responsible not to go look for it. When the cat turns out to be a shape-shifting trickster who abducts Michael and delivers him to the militant daughter of the Faerie Queen, he's too wigged out to stick around and hear what she wants. And when his attempts to get home reveal a hidden Faerie world full of violence and terror that is about to spill over into his own world, Michael must decide whether he's too much of a coward to take part in the princess's plan to prevent it.

The trickster has been tricked. The pooka, a shape-shifter who gets his kicks playing cruel practical jokes, has met his match in the princess. He must now perform three tasks to win back his freedom. The first two are simple: get close to the actor, and bring him to the princess. It's the third that proves a challenge, as he must pose as Michael and carry on his life so that no one notices he's gone. The pooka's weakness for human women, and the consequences he would face for indulging that weakness, have for ages kept him from impersonating a human, so he's a little out of practice. The only person close enough to Michael to unwittingly provide the pooka with the guidance he needs is Claire, Michael's beautiful assistant, who is still struggling with feelings for her former lover. The pooka just wants to finish his task and get out of this mess with his immortality intact so that he can return to the simple life of pleasing only himself.

As one world stands on the brink of a war which would bring destruction to the other, Michael's and the pooka's paths eventually intertwine as one discovers the mystery of his past and what it means to possess true power, one discovers the mysteries of humanity and what it means to love someone other than himself, and both discover the sacrifices required of those who would be heroes.

I'm excited about this hook. Looking at it as objectively as possible, this describes a book I would love to read. That means it's a book I'd also love to have written. That last part is what's going to keep me going when I find myself slogging through the second act, trying to fit all of the pieces together and in desperate need of a second wind.

©2007 by Jean Marie Bauhaus

Labels: Hero+Factor, progress+reports

I'm exceptionally sleepy this morning. Under optimal circumstances, this can be a good thing for my writing. It's conducive to daydreaming and falling into that trance-like, meditative state I like to call "story head." Here at the office, though, where I've been doing pretty much all of my writing ever since my home computer crapped out on me last year, there are too many distractions, and so I never quite get there. To really achieve that state, I need quiet. Music doesn't help. On a day when I've had enough sleep, I can put on my headphones and crank up some classical music to drown out the chatter of my early-bird coworkers and go to town on my novel; but on a day like today, it's just not happening. I'm too unfocused, and I just want to put my head down and doze.

Even so, I expect to break the 35,000 word mark this week. Not too shabby, considering that due to schedule weirdness I didn't write anything novel-related in the previous two weeks. So this week is all about getting back into the routine, anyway. And if I can end it on a milestone, that will spur me on into next week. And if I can just get through this chapter, which has been a difficult one to get my head around (normally when that happens I just skip it and move on, but I've reached a point where it's necessary to come back to this one and find out exactly what happens here), then it should be smooth sailing for a while.

The middle part is the hardest part, y'all. And I've still got a lot of middle left to go.

Labels: Hero+Factor, progress+reports