New Avenues (and a Chapter 1)

Giving Wattpad a try. If you like eyestrain but hate paying for books, my novel is there (and above in the widget)!
For those of you who enjoy a file they can put on their Kindle (or other device), head on over to Smashwords and pick up a copy. Paperback coming soon.

Now, I realize to get good sales, I've got to shove this thing down your collective throats. I did that in the past and honestly, it got me nowhere. Expect the occasional "buy my book!" tweet, but I can't be a 24/7 commercial.

A lot of love has gone into The Silent Treatment. As some of you know, it was available previously, and then mysteriously out of print. An author can never really leave well enough alone with her own work, so I re-edited the whole thing (including a new first chapter), and gave it a shiny new cover.

During the re-edit, I realized how much I love this story. It's not just the silent film angle, it's the budding romance and the family angst. I've also realized that I probably couldn't write southern dialogue today like I did back then. I was amazed at how little the characters cussed (compared to the still-unpublished Awake, which is much more New York in its vocabulary), which is pretty typical of that region.

Anyway, I'm hoping those of you who thought the beginning of the novel wasn't quite gripping enough will give it another shot. Recommend it to your friends if you like it -- word of mouth is everything to an indie author. Write a review if you can be bothered.

And here's a nice closeup of the new cover. A lot of anguish went into its creation, but I'm certain I've got something good.

Art

We'll just start where my thoughts have been pooling the past few days:

Granted, most of you have already read about this and I'm much too late to say anything relevant. (Don't we all have personal issues that prevent us from getting on with fun stuff?)

As something of an artist myself, I would think that if I attempted a job like this, especially on a painting I loved, I would make sure I had the skills to complete it -- and if not, to know when to stop  the minute I realized I'd effed the em-effer up. Apparently, the amateur restorationist in question started with the tunic and continued upward. It just ... hurts my heart to look at this, but like the freaking train wreck that it is, I can't stop going, "why? how -- it doesn't even look like -- I can't -- HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??" And look at the scroll that's now at the bottom ... it wasn't even on the original!

Something good has come out of this. The tourism this painting is generating is boosting the economy in the small Spanish town where it's located. Some people think the painting should be kept as it is for this reason. There's a video of Mr. Bean "fixing" a painting in that article.

And for a hilarious look at what "Ecce Mono" might tweet about, follow @FrescoJesus

ANYWAY...

I've been working on my own artistic project recently, and here it is:

The only thing I have to do now is finish the damned novel this cover goes on. Otherwise, it's useless.

Writing could be going better, but as the previously mentioned personal drama suggests, I've hit a tiny creativity snag. Or maybe I've been over-saturating my brain with this story and I desperately need a break.

What do you all do when you've hit a wall, creatively speaking? Do you focus on a different hobby or go for a walk? I especially enjoyed making this cover -- maybe because I was still on the same project, but in a totally different way.

Any comments or critiques on the cover are much appreciated. And if you'd like to "restore" it with a monkey face (a'la the botched fresco above), please send me a .jpg.

Reading on the Subway, Balloons, and Being Mean to Characters

My commute every day is roughly an hour and a half each way, which gives me plenty of time to catch up on some reading now that things have settled down. The subway is a great place to detach because who wants to focus on the weird person falling asleep on your shoulder, or listen to the gum-popper or crying baby? Earbuds. Book. Keep your belongings in sight, and have a great day.


I started reading IT by Stephen King because I have a strange fear of clowns stemming back to an episode of Matlock I saw when I was a kid (don't even ask). Anyway, unlike wasps or dentists, I don't come in contact with clowns hardly at all, so I figured reading a horror story about one wouldn't be a huge deal. Thankfully, I was right.

I'm not done with the story yet, so it might get bad really quickly, but for now, I'm enjoying the characterization interspersed with terrifying, violent scenes involving a shape-shifting clown and his multitude of balloons (don't even get me started on balloons!)



Long story short (hah!) this book has given me some great ideas of where to take my current work in progress, Awake. Of course, I won't be copying anything Mr. King has done, but I'll be learning much more about my characters and giving them a lot more background. Because when you care about a character (a lot), it's ten times worse when the author does something horrible to them.

How to Write: Sex Scenes

Right now, I need to tell my parents to stop reading. I appreciate your love and support, but this is not the post I want you to remember me for. Click here instead. (goes doubly for grandparents)

Anyone else who doesn't appreciate R rated material should also skip this one.

Alright.

My current work in progress, Awake, has something none of my previous works have had: a sex scene. Believe me, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to show this novel to my parents without chopping out a whole chapter. Actually, when I first picked up the book Sex, Murder and a Double Latte the first sentence resonated with me:

"The downside to writing sex scenes is that my mother reads my books."  

Yeah, obviously, I'm not the first person to have this problem. I guess I'll figure something out when the time comes. (Just now getting a lot of unnecessary anxiety about this.)

Barring the difficulties of sharing scenes as intimate as these, getting the words out can be difficult too. This post's aim is to help with that.

There are different kinds of sex scenes for various situations.

For realistic scenes in which you don't want the girl to seem too easy, or the guy to be a coarse, ill-mannered brute, there's a specific order to the action, starting way before the scene itself. It's not so much what is done – ‘petting’ (kissing and limited fondling), ‘heavy petting’ (breast fondling with direct skin contact, stimulation through clothing), or even actual intercourse. Assuming mutual attraction in the first place, what matters is actually the order in which the characters do these things. As long as they each go through the same stages step by step and it is accepted by the other, everything is usually okay, even if the stages are gone through quickly. 

If you follow the stages in roughly the right order, sex will always seem consensual, and therefore acceptable. Some of the later stages often merge or are skipped altogether without problem. The faster it happens, and the more stages you skip, the more explosive and lust-based it seems, BUT you have to show both parties at same stage for it not to seem like rape for one or the other. The slower you take them through the stages, and the fewer stages you skip, the more it becomes love-making, and the more erotic it becomes. This order is roughly: 

1. ‘Accidental’ hand touching.
2. Hand touching/holding.
3. ‘Accidental’ body contact. e.g. arm brushing breast or vice versa, hips/legs brushing while walking/sitting.
4. Deliberate contact. Arm round shoulder/waist.
5. Touching other’s face/hair.
6. Kiss, with minimal body to body contact.
7. Long kiss, full body contact.
8. Brief contact with lesser erogenous zones. e.g. Ear lobe, neck, back.
9. Longer deliberate contact with major erogenous zones (breasts, followed by thighs/legs, followed by inner thighs and upward, through clothing.
10. Naked contact between torsos. Strong genital to genital contact through clothes, accompanied by strong pressure and movement.
11. Full naked contact.
12. Actual intercourse.

How to describe the sex scene:

1. Making it coy, old-fashioned, clichéd and funny
1. Use pet/old names for the sex organs. 
2. Recycled metaphors and similes. “His train entered her tunnel at full steam ahead.” “Her maidenhead opened for him like a flower to the sun.” “His honeybee sipped her delicious nectar.” “His rocket launched into her orbit.”
   

1. Making it pornographic:
1. Rapid invasion of personal space.
2. Make the sexual response one-sided.
3. Focus on the sex organs and intercourse.
4. Use lots of the four letter words repeatedly, and the more insulting slang.
5. Repeat words like thrust, rammed, forced at regular intervals.
6. Keep repeating the same actions over and over.
7. Skip lots of stages.
8. Focus on physical descriptions rather than emotions.
9. Avoid gentle gestures, or touching non-erogenous zones.
10. Skip kisses unless they’re brutal and forceful.
11. Lots of loud cries, especially four letter words.
12. Significant use of force or pain.

1. Making it love-making:
1. Go slowly through each of the stages, at least to start with, and show that each is enjoying and accepting it.
2. Place the emphasis on how it feels rather than on what is being done.
3. Loving touches on each other’s bodies away from erogenous zones, kisses and eye contact. Whispered endearments (but not coy ones). Lots of foreplay in other words.
4. Show each showing their pleasure to the other. 
5. A small amount of scratching and biting is okay, but it’s easy to overdo it. Qualify it to stay safe e.g., gentle scraping, nipping.
6. Show mutual surrender to the pleasure as you approach the climax.
7. Both achieve climax; together is best but not compulsory, as long as the one who reaches orgasm first continues until the other does. Let the climax continue for a reasonable time, at least for the woman. Average time for a man from initial onset to final contraction is up to about 7 seconds for a man, 30 seconds for a woman, though the last ten seconds or so, they’re fading down. 
8. Don’t be too graphic/specific. If you need to be specific, stick to the accepted words and/or the commonest, least coarse alternatives/abbreviations. Even so, keep it the minimum.
9. Gentle sounds if any.
10. Remember intercourse is simply one stage in love-making.
11. Repeat 3c after climax.
    

1. Making it fairly steamy/ erotic/spicy:
1. Go through all the early stages very quickly. Can put up to three in one sentence.
2. Skip odd later stages, but mix in foreplay/kisses/eye contact even during intercourse.
3. Include the same loving gestures as in love making. But make them more forceful and produce a stronger and noisier response.
4. Can use more graphic/specific description but stick to the ‘acceptable’ options as in 3g.
5. More of stuff in 3e, but more strongly, but make sure you show a pleasure response by partner, and have them return it.
6. Make it noisier, quicker and more forceful for both.
7. Make them collapse with exhaustion afterwards, if only for a few moments while they get their breath back.
8. Even more important to repeat 3c afterwards.

Other resources: 12 Step Guide to Writing Sex Scenes, How to Write a Kissing Scene

Not this year

Oh NaNoWriMo, how I love you. Last year, I compared the challenge to my version of Christmas (since I don't have the wherewithal to visit my family around the Holidays), but ended up failing to write 50,000 words because that story didn't want to be written. This year, as you all know, I'm in school, and won't have the time or energy to start a new story and bang out all those words in a month. November's going to be tricky for me anyway.

However, I can't stay away from writing, even if I'm not starting anything new. Since I've gotten to New York, I've been plugging away at editing Awake, my favorite, ever-changing mess of a novel. I have high hopes for it this go round, though.

Sometimes writing is the only thing that keeps me sane. I'm learning something completely new (and a bit foreign), living in a new (big and very crowded) city, with some ... interesting roommates. When asked why I write mysteries, why I focus on kidnappings and murders and dark things like that, I tell them I have to write it down so I don't do it in real life. That usually gets me a laugh ... but sometimes I wonder if it's not completely true.

Living away from my husband and with someone who seems to only find fault in what I do, writing is the one thing that stays exactly the same in either place. Sure, the characters and plot are always being tweaked, but Sophia always loves Josh, and they all want to know just how the hell to get home.

Another thing to keep my sanity in place is re-watching old TV shows I used to love. Because my internet connection is crap for crap and I can't watch new TV, I've been either watching DVDs or patiently waiting for something to load on Netflix. The two shows I've gotten (re)hooked on are The Young Ones, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. ... Better than focusing on not having a husband or a cat in my room, and blocking out my roommate's conversations about poop.

Ten Years

The towers on 9/11/11

With the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 just behind us, I've been thinking about how far I've come in that decade. What started out with me working at Blockbuster Video watching the news from New York on a TV we kept behind the counter, has ended with me going to school within walking distance from where it happened.

It struck me as odd on the 11th this year as I walked toward the new WTC that ten years ago, people were rushing away from the site, and this year people crowded toward it.

Also ten years ago, I was working on a version of a story that would become Awake. Today it barely resembles that story (because it kind of sucked), but has been stuck in a perpetual mode of "first draft" ever since. Maybe in another ten years I'll look back on today and think, "wow, I hung onto that piece of crap for that long?" Who knows. Maybe I'll be watching it in the theater by then, reading in forums about how so-and-so actor sucks in it.

To supplement my writing in 2001, since for some reason literature that was written 100 years ago was the only thing with merit in my eyes, I was obsessively reading Oscar Wilde. While enjoyable, all this did was make my writing as pretentious as possible, which is why the whole thing has been thrown out except for the single concept I'm using now. 

Discussion time: how has your life changed in the past 10 years? Any surprises you didn't see coming?

Reviews

Time for some fantasy in my reading now ... just kind of happened that way.

Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice

I started this book years ago and put it down for whatever reason. Now that I'm trying to broaden my literary horizons somewhat, and because I didn't feel quite up to reading Twilight, I went with Anne Rice again.

The story was nice, but I recognized some things in her writing style as things I've been told not to do -- like being too wordy. As I got into the book, I wanted to yell, "get on with it! I KNOW!" I read somewhere that she doesn't use an editor, but that her writing would be much better with one. I agree.


The Princess Bride - William Goldman

This book was a bit of a surprise for me. After having seen the movie about a million times (as we all have), for some reason I wasn't expecting the book to be funny. Because I read primarily on public transportation, I try to keep my reactions to myself, but I laughed aloud several times.




Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

My husband and I have been watching the Harry Potter movies lately, but since I've been spending too much time away from home, our DVD watching time has been seriously compromised. I wanted to find out what happened next (since I didn't get on board when I was younger), so I pulled out the books.

Maybe it's just me, but Rowling gets a bit wordy too. Granted, I'm not in her target age group. Something that bugged me a lot was how angry and stubborn Harry is. He gets an idea and sticks with it till the bitter end, despite what anyone else tells him. Maybe we can chalk that up to what this character has been through (which is a lot for someone that age), or just his own character traits (because at least one of the other characters calls him out on it).

Anyway, I liked it well enough that I went straight into the last in the series, and even at the beginning of the book, I'm holding my breath thinking, "oh no... oh NO!"

Changes for Melanie pt. 2

As it turns out, when I don't update for a while, lots of stuff happens. Perhaps this is an accumulation, or maybe so much is going on that I don't have time to write. (My poor novel knows all about that!)

Bollywood themed entry

At school, I participated in an up-do competition and lost. But it got a lot of positive attention, which I enjoyed.

Additionally, learning more cuts and color theory is making my head explode, so I decided to stop commuting from Philly to NY every day and rented a room. It sucks very much being away from home, but the extra hours of sleep I get are making it worthwhile (I think). Not sure if I'll ever get used to the sheer volume of people in New York (I've never liked crowds).

The long weekend is the perfect time to get some writing done since I've promised myself not to think about hair in these three days (except for the little bit I wrote in the paragraphs above).

Still no release date for The Morning After (with Untreed Reads), so I'll continue to keep you updated as I learn more. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get some work done on Awake, which is taking forever. This is either going to be my best story every, or I'll waste so much time on it I'll fail to get anything else written and ruin my career before it gets started. In the meantime, though, I'm taking notes on all the crazy city behavior I'm witnessing on a daily basis and saving it up for something spectacular. 

Cosmetology, Publishing, and other Stuff

So, jeez, where to begin?

It's been a crazy month or so. Started cosmetology school at Arrojo in New York -- commuting every day from Philly. It's a lot, but about a fourth of the people on the bus every day are regulars, so I'm not the only one doing this. Cosmetology just kind of happened all of a sudden. I couldn't be in the cubicle any more (they say office work is soul-crushing--I found that to be horrifyingly true).

Some things have been more challenging than others (getting the blow-dry right, for example), but for the most part, I love going to school, and I'm so glad I made this decision! The teachers are extremely knowledgable and helpful, always telling us why something is important rather than saying, "Oh, don't worry about it, just do it." Genuinely nice, too.

In the Writing World...
Can't give any specifics yet, but one of my short stories is about to see the light of day! The Morning After, the "little novella that could", finally piqued someone's interest when I chopped a few thousand words out. Not sure if the title will stay the same after it's gone through the final edit. Super excited! My first real foot in the door! Rest assured I'll keep you all updated on the release date once I have one. Until then, share in my happiness.

Awake is getting such a big overhaul that it's almost not the same story it was when I started. Granted, that's not all bad, but it's always disheartening when someone doesn't like your characters or doesn't enjoy a particular plot point (particularly when someone says a decision your character has made was stupid ... because really, it was me making the decision for him ... ouch). Nevertheless, all the comments and critiques I've gotten so far have helped develop both the characters and the plot. Every time I rewrite this story, I think it's finally the last time, but now I'll just let it go where it needs to. Each time it gets better, so in 50 more drafts, it'll be quite okay. Reassigning a few character traits, adding some backstory and suspense. Yeah, it'll be fine.

Other Creative Stuff

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I've decided to make and sell some jewelry and amigurumi. I've always enjoyed making things, and now I'm pushing them on you fine people! I mean, look at that bear in my hand. She's practically begging you to take her home. Don't make her cry!