Lots of writer's need a muse to get started but some writer's just need a playlist to keep them going.
Because I have two younger children who need to be in bed at prime-time, I don't have the luxury of listening to music most of the time when I write. But I do on occasion get the chance to, like during the summer when they can stay up a tad longer, weekends, and school breaks. And I have to admit...it makes it go down just a little bit easier.
For Valor of a Woman I had a decent mix that kept the story line in order for me and I kept it on loop. Now occasionally I would need a break and hit my dance mix just to even things out. But the following songs and artists are the ones I used for the most part and I have to admit I probably listened to the following songs more than a hundred times each. Mind you I haven't heard many of these since, but when I occasionally catch one or two of these on the radio I have to smile as it takes me back to when I was writing the story.
Ingrid Michaelson's Take Me The Way I am
Train's Hey Soul Sister also the remix version!
The Glee Cast's Version of Poker Face
The ENTIRE soundtrack for Moulin Rogue
(OK I'm a sucker for mash-ups! But Elephant Love Medley ROCKS!)
These songs were on repeat for the two months it took me to bang out the first draft. For old times sake I had to go back and listen to all of these songs again while I wrote this.
Writer's vary on our muse's and what it takes to keep us going. This was just what I needed for this particular story. The next one that makes it this far, I'll definitely post the list for it as well!
--Mel
Release date is August 17, 2012
http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=549&category_id=231&manufacturer_id=263&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1
It's been a crazy past few weeks! Between a mad dash on edits (which I didn't get until the middle of MAY!) After all of the stresses over that in the last few weeks, I've finally been given the green light for a "sparkling manuscript" and for formatting! YAY!
I have my cover art as well. It's beautiful!
My kids have been gone for nearly three weeks. We are all getting misty-eyed when we talk each evening and it's getting more and more difficult for me to talk them into wanting to stay longer. They've never been away from me for longer than eleven days so it's killing them...Mommy too, but I can't let them know that!
Just an interesting summer all the way around. Hopefully I will find out the exact date here soon for when Valor of a Woman comes out and I will be back again to share!
But for now we'll just have to revel in the cover art!
--Mel
Well it seems like I broke my promise of trying to do something weekly with this blog, LOL.
Life has intervened. In the passed year I've changed professions (assistant administrative assistant), moved my tiny family (back to the country), and got a contract! Those are big things! Looking back at that it seems like I've accomplished quite a bit.
My "pour your heart out and bawl like a baby" story that was so emotionally draining...wound up getting a contract and is slotted to come out in August 2012 from MuseItUp Publishing. Valor of a Woman is going through the final stages of edits and soon I should hear from the cover artist.
I'm excited and terrified...and wondering where I should go from here. Should I go back and revisit Walker's Run and finally tear the story apart? Or try and pick up something away from paranormal romance again? There hasn't been enough time away from the emotional density of my contracted work to even think of writing another "real life" story.
I've been kicking around a few ideas, even a joint work with an old friend of mine that seems promising if we can ever manage to get our schedules to even out where we can actually speak to one another.
I have a few weeks of supposed "peace" the kids are with their father in another state...and you would think I'd be able to write...BAH! It's too quiet! A recently acquired kitten has taken up and is driving me crazy, pouncing on the keys as I try to type ANYTHING, or is determined to just pull the laptop from my makeshift table.
Just some babbling all around. I will "try" to make a weekly appearance here. And trust me, I will be posting about how things go during my first month out in the running once Valor of a Woman comes out.
--Mel
Good evening!
Wow...its been over a year since I've touched this thing. Things have been crazy to say the least, but I will try to make a weekly appearance here. Reading back through the few I have made me giggle.
Anyway I was thinking this evening while standing out on the back porch, having an afternoon cigarette and watching the sun drift into the sunset about Walker's Run. The series that has been the biggest pain in my butt ever. It has been sitting for over a year. I opened the file about a month ago with the intention of rereading it and seeing what I thought I could do. Over a year since I've touched it, but its always on my mind.
The title of this little Blog tonight is called Heroes verses Heroines for a reason, I'm getting there I promise. I'm a tad long winded, so bare with me. We'll get there eventually.
The lead female character in Walker's Run is Casey Maynard. A high profile fashion photographer that is looking for a way out of the limelight. Walker's Run begins with her need to get away from everything and find a way to leave her old life behind. While many would think this has the makings of a strong female lead, I've been told it was the exact opposite. Casey was too calm and laid back and I needed to make her more of a bitch. Now mind you, the lead male character is calm and laid back...but there wasn't a complaint about that, for some reason its expected in romances for the women to be bold, maybe brash, but most definitely they have to be strong either mentally, morally, or just a plain bitch.
Kinda confused there.
It's okay for a male character to be calm, cool, and laid-back, but not the female. This is just something that's struck me as interesting and moreover I see it myself when I read others works. Now I have an interesting female character in the Walker's Run series that even branches into the Guardian Series. Amber is the ultimate take-over, cross-over character but....BUT...in the very first Walker's Run it is Casey that is the female lead and I've been told in no uncertain terms she was kinda boring, LOL.
It just made me wonder why there was such a difference between the two. Its more commonly accepted for a male lead to be cool-headed where we expect the women to be bolder. I don't know...just something that has been kicking around in my head today.
Any thoughts on this lemme know!
--Mel
Okay, I guess I'm having some slight issues...LOL, those who know me are like, "When don't you...?"
I just finished a story and I'm...bored, LOL. Seriously. I don't have anything fresh at the moment and I'm frantically procrastinating working on the crits for Walker's Run which is becoming more of a chore than I ever meant it to be. Eventually it will be a great series, but for now its killing me and breaking my heart at the same time.
Some older stories are starting to rear their ugly heads and wanting attention too and I'm not too sure I feel like delving back into them yet. I want something fresh and exciting again. Stepping outside the box with my last story was...refreshing...but not something I want to do again so soon, LOL. It's an incredibly emotional story and...I just can't go there again so soon.
Unfortunately the characters of Walker's Run are talking to me again, specifically that of the Silver Wolf. Who is the first Were ever and the Mother of all were-creatures. I'd hoped to satisfy her need to have her story told by adding some first-person bits into Walker's Run explaining her first incarnation...but more and more she's speaking to me and wanting her original story told. I'm seriously considering it which is the scary part! It wouldn't necessarily be part of the WR series, maybe like a prequel standalone? I don't know...its bugging me and she's been good and patient, its been a long time coming. I sat down to write WR in hopes that it would suffice...Uhm...nope!
Like I said, I'm bored, reaching for things to think about and just in general talking out of my head since JC and Jo aren't chatting with me...*humph*...LOL. I get most of my ideas out of nowhere bouncing weird shit off of my friends!
Anyway...its time for my cough syrup and some decongestant and hope I get at least two hours of sleep so I can get up before the sun does and get my daughter ready for school. I'll be back around late as I have work tomorrow evening...I so love closing on Wednesdays...ugh...senior day and the first day of the new add. Things don't work out right, I'm the one that gets all the complaints. Right now I can't plaster on the "I'll kiss your ass" smile and be all professional. Hopefully by tomorrow I can manage to dig it out of the bottom of my pocket.
--Mel
Tuesday night I went to a book signing, my first time. Unfortunately I brought along an incredibly negative person: my children's grandmother, their father's mother; and of course my two kids.
Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of the authors in my reading list. And she came to my town her first NC visit ever, so I had to go. OMG, J bitched the ENTIRE damn time! It was awful...didn't help my kids got stir crazy around hour two. I have a three and five year old. My five year old loves the opportunity to talk to any and everyone she can corner and my son...well he's all boy and he likes to show off when he's shy to get out of his box and winds up acting out. J takes my son outside for an hour or so while I'm waiting for my group to get called up.
In the mean time Diana Love is acting like the consummate hostess telling stories I'm sure Sherry will kick her ass for later, LOL, they have an awesome friendship; and she was passing out goodies. But the whole time I was more concerned with just getting it over with rather than enjoying myself and trying "TRYING" to be social, LOL. I'm one of those that stands in the background and sizes people up for a bit before I gauge what to say to people and how to talk to them. You get a sense of their personality and their cadence of speech and how they talk and what words they can understand, LMAO.
Yes I'm weird, have I not covered that yet?
But because I was so worked up about keeping the kids out, my daughter is in Kindergarten and it was a school night. I was afraid my son would tear the book store apart and in general I was just fucking miserable. No one I know in person has read Kenyon. I didn't know a single person there and I've never been one to just walk up to someone and start talking to them, well not since I became a moody emo/gothic teen anyway, LMAO. So there I sat, my daughter was chatting away at the person next to her and I was just miserable, because I let J get to me. She was bitching about the time, that she didn't like the fact that Sherry talked too much...I mean GOOD GOD! Fans love to hear their author's talk! No she'd never read anything, I even gave her a book and had it autographed for her and she's not read it. I actually gave her the book to read about six months ago. She had to dig for it for an hour to find it to bring it to the signing!
The only time I was able to relax and finally start chatting was while I waited the forty minutes standing in line waiting to get my books signed. Diana Love came over and started chatting with me and a few of the other women in line with us. Then here comes J, fussing about the time and everything else. Diana was sweet and played with my daughter for a few and laughed at my son.
And Sherry when I finally got up to her, my kids bombarded her. Bless her, she was so sweet about it. She stuck out her hand to shake my son's hand, and he looked up at her, knocked her hand aside and just hugged her, LOL. She actually laughed and said, "Well if I get a hug then I get to keep you." My kids are gargantuans. My five year old daughter is as tall as most 8 year olds. My three year old son is the size of a five or six year old. She simply told me they were great kids and said to never apologize she understood being a mom of three boys how children could be and after five hours she was completely impressed with them. Meanwhile, J is practically laying down in a huge chair, acting as if she were going to die if we didn't leave as soon as possible.
I got a quick picture with Sherry and had to leave...my son attacks her gifts that her fans had given her and tries to run off with a singing dragon. I reach for it and he throws with uncanny accuracy and bowls over both of the expensive Acheron and Simi dolls and I was, of course, embarrassed and what does Ms. Kenyon do? She laughs like hell says he has a great arm and he'll make mommy rich one day as either a football or baseball player, picks up the stuff, gives my son a final hug and continues with the next person in line.
LOL, it was actually not a half bad time, but 97% of it I was made to feel guilty and half the pleasure was sucked right out of something that should have been fun.
So, I suggest that if any of you out there plan on doing something like this...don't take a negative ninny old bitch with you.
--Mel
Okay, okay...I don't do these things much so bear with me a bit while I get the hang of this shit. And if you don't care for it, well, it was Jc's idea, she's to blame. Yep, that's where I'll put it. If it turns out all right then, she'll get a pat on the back instead of a kick in the ass, (that she probably deserves anyway...)
My bio pretty much says it all. I'm a single mom, blah blah, two kids great and annoying both at the same time. Love them, too much of me in them and they are stubborn as hell.
I work as a book keeper and I'm numerically dyslexic, YAY! Found that out about six months after starting the job. I always knew math was never my strong suit, and now I know its because of that. Oh well, I still hate numbers and math, good thing I write, huh?
Writing is an escape for me. I enjoy it and my tastes are wide and varied in the authors I read to the things I write. For the most part my stuff is paranormal, then more recently I've branched into the paranormal romance. I have some contemporary stuff. I've been told some of my latest work borders on erotica...*sigh* but the scenes rock, LOL. I just write what strikes me at the moment and stepped way outside my comfort zone with my latest story 'The Valor of a Woman'. It's a contemporary romance that grabs you by the heart strings and takes you through wide and varied emotions and definitely at least a half a Kleenex box read. Kimra Valor is one of those characters you just instantly love. But it isn't one of those happy sigh inducing love stories and it doesn't have a happy ending.
The series I'm working on revolves around Were-creatures and its a paranormal romance, massive crits to go through to get it straightened out and in the process of procrastinating is when "The Valor of a Woman' hit me about one a.m. one morning and wouldn't let me go. Two months later back in the same boat...do a complete rewrite...again? Or fix what's wrong? I'm leaning towards rewriting some things and fixing others, but we'll see when I finally get my lazy ass to that point, won't we? And spawning off of that will be a Guardian series. Once I get back into doing the crits and working on Walker's Run I'll give more details on them.
But I have lots of other shit in my vacuum cleaner box full of stories that I will one day go through and look back at. (Seriously my first 20 stories are hand written in binders stuffed in a vacuum cleaner box in a storage unit about six hours from here.) I've got tween and teen stuff as well as a total fantasy and a contemporary romance series and a vampire trilogy somewhere, LOL. A female serial killer written in first person. The list goes on. Forty-two plus stories and counting.
Okay this is enough. I didn't feel like ranting tonight, give me time and I'll give you an eye full of shit one night when the mood strikes.
--Mel
