Friday, September 22, 2017

I'm afraid of the dark

. . . But only certain kinds of dark. Some kinds of dark are super fun. The dark I'm afraid of is the darker side of humanity. As a fiction writer, this a problem. Generally speaking, antagonists are representative of the dark, ugly sides of humanity. They're what we fear. I'm not necessarily afraid of evil psychopaths and mass murderers. I'm afraid of writing them. If I write them accurately, I have to delve into their brain, and that's scary as hell.

Sometimes it's fun. I've been thinking a lot about these fears lately. I think this is the appeal of supernatural monsters: vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons, etc. For me, and maybe others, it's easy to write these characters as evil because they aren't us. They aren't human. In New Year's Revolution, I have a vampire character named Bianca who is horribly evil and deranged. She is completely screwed up in the head and has done horrible, unspeakable things. But I have no problem writing her. In fact, I love writing her. She's awesome. I love how demented she is. But she's a vampire. She isn't human. I don't have to fear becoming her because she is literally a monster. In City of Secrets I have an evil ghost. He's also done horrible things. But he's a powerful ghost who feeds off of selfish desires. Again, he is literally a monster.

It's the human bad guys that terrify me. In Pieces my antagonist is a murderer and a child molester. This is a human being who does unspeakable things. I'm not writing in this character's POV, but even so, I'm having a hard time getting in their head. (Using "they" as a genderless pronoun on the off-chance that a future beta reader reads this post. I don't want to give away who the antag is.) I have no idea what this person's "mask" is. I don't know what they're thinking on a daily basis. I don't know how they're supposed to interact with the other characters. I winged it for the second draft, but now that I'm writing the third draft, it's time to dig deeper, whether I like it or not. I don't.

As I started digging into their head and realizing their backstory, they started to become more human. At first, I thought "Yay! I know more about them!" But then I balked. I don't want this character to feel human, because it brings me to the question "If this person is a human, with real, human feelings, how terrifying is it that they do these unspeakable things?"

I am someone whose opinion falls into the gray area on a number of subjects. There are very few things in this world that are black and white. Serial killers, terrorists, and child molesters? I used to think they were all bad. That was a nice, comforting thought. Something is wrong with these people. They were born bad. But maybe they weren't. Something happened to them that made them bad. Or, even scarier, they don't believe they're bad. Inside their heads are warped ideas and motives behind what they are doing. In the case of my antagonist, they believe they are doing good. These thoughts are scary, because it makes me realize that maybe I'm less different from the "bad guys" than I thought I was. I view these people with pity. I can't fathom willingly deciding to hurt or violate someone. I also can't fathom someone else willingly deciding to hurt or violate someone. So what made them do it? What makes a killer a killer and a rapist a rapist? Did they lose control? Did something take over their brain and make them do it? Did they find some twisted justification?

This brings me to my deepest, darkest fear, one that I don't usually talk about for fear of people misunderstanding and/or thinking I'm crazy. What if something happens and I suddenly become evil? It sounds ridiculous on paper, but there it is. I love horror novels and movies, but there's a certain type of psychological horror that I can't handle. I used to be a big Dean Koontz fan. I was reading Moonlight Bay (minor spoiler coming, but nothing that'll ruin it). It was great. It was one of my favorites, until I got to this part where this man, who was a perfectly normal, nice, family guy started having nightmares about raping and murdering his wife and daughter. The nightmares terrified him, but they wouldn't stop coming. Eventually he started to want to do it, and to fantasize about it. I had to put the book down for a bit, it disturbed me so much. I realize it's fiction, but it's a terrifying thought.

Getting back to my writing, it's hard for me to dip into the mind of my evil antagonists, because I fear finding out that their mind maybe isn't that different from mine. Maybe the line between good and evil isn't as clear as I thought.
On the other hand, maybe digging into their brain might ease my fears. Maybe I'll realize that while their minds are more complicated than I thought, there is a difference. I don't know, but I do know that I want to write good books. Books with genuine characters. Books that scare people but also comfort them. Books that make people think. Books people can relate to. In order to do that, I have to face my fear of the dark.
I hope it gets easier.
Thoughts and suggestions on how to do this and/or cope with it are welcome. Thanks!

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Saturday, September 16, 2017

What if the ideas run out?

As a writer, one of my biggest fears is that one day I'll stop having great ideas, that the well will be dry, and I'll have no more great stories. This is especially scary because I've just now started to get better at putting a good story together. What if there are no more ideas to put into stories?

When I started my first novel, New Year's Revolution, in 2010, I expected it to be a fluke, and at the time I was totally fine with that. I just wanted to get Ella's story written. Eventually, the idea for City of Secrets came to me, and Pieces soon followed. These three stories have been keeping me pretty busy, so I haven't had time to worry about the idea well going dry. During that time, a number of other ideas have floated in and out of my brain, but none of them have given me that warm-fuzzy "this is it" feeling. Now, Pieces is almost finished and I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing with the other two, which means it might be time to start thinking about a new project.

Guess when is a great time to start thinking about new projects? That's right, Fall is a great time for that, because NaNoWriMo is right around the corner. I had a brand new idea recently, but it's still just a tiny seed. I'm starting to worry that I don't know how to turn those little seeds into great stories. If I were a plotter, this would be fine. I'd know what to do. But I'm not a plotter. "The stuff" has to come to me naturally. Or at least, that's how it's worked in the past. But what if that magic won't happen anymore? What if I have to sit down and force it out?


What if I have to learn to plot?



Yeah. It's horrifying. 

Bright side: I wrote down a few more brainstorms tonight, so I think I might be able to do something with this idea. 

It'll be a romance. Say what?




I'm having a hard time believing it myself. 

If I'm lucky, I may even have enough of an idea formed to be able to write a crappy draft during November. I really like the idea of "beginning a 1st draft in November for NaNoWriMo" tradition. It worked great for 2015, when I wrote the 1st draft of Pieces. In 2016, I just started the 2nd draft of Pieces and started to write a lot, so it doesn't quite count as a second year of NaNo. 

While I'm excited about the idea, I'm wondering if this will always be my fear. Maybe it's a writer thing? If we run out of ideas, what do we have left?

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Thursday, September 7, 2017

Fighting Hate

Hello friends. Just sending a quick reminder that when I'm not writing, I'm making jewelry along with some of my wonderful friends and talented artists. Together we are Pins with Purpose. A good chunk of our items feature safety pins, a symbol of solidarity. All of our proceeds benefit various charitable/non-profit organizations. A few of our items also support PACs, but those items are listed separately in the Repeal/Replace Congress category.

One of the organizations we support is The Southern Poverty Law Center.

Now seems like a pretty good time to remind people of what SPLC does and why it's important to give them lots of love and support right now. We have a man in the White House who refuses to condemn racism and white supremacists. This is not okay, and not normal. Because this man is in office, people who identify as Nazis and white supremacists now feel comfortable expressing their views publicly. This is not okay, and not normal. There has been a rise in hate crimes. This is not okay, and not normal.

Where does the SPLC come in? They fight all the hate.

From their site:
"The SPLC is the premier U.S. non-profit organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists – including the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazi movement, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, antigovernment militias, Christian Identity adherents and others.
We’re currently tracking more than 1,600 extremist groups operating across the country. We publish investigative reports, train law enforcement officers and share key intelligence, and offer expert analysis to the media and public."
"The SPLC stands up for the powerless, the exploited and other victims of discrimination and hate.
For more than four decades, we’ve won landmark cases that brought systemic reforms in the Deep South.
We’ve toppled remnants of Jim Crow segregation and destroyed violent white supremacist groups. We’ve shattered barriers to equality for women, vulnerable children, the LGBT community and the disabled. We’ve protected migrant workers and immigrants from abuse, ensured the humane treatment of prisoners, reformed juvenile justice practices, and more.
Today, with a staff of more than 100 lawyers and advocates, we’re focused on impact litigation in these practice areas: Children’s RightsEconomic JusticeImmigrant JusticeLGBT Rights and Criminal Justice Reform."

That's just a quick overview. Learn more here: https://www.splcenter.org/ 
We at Pins With Purpose have items that support the SPLC. As a reminder, 100% of sales of items listed for SPLC will go to SPLC. Artists volunteer time and supplies and are only reimbursed for shipping and handling.  We are happy to do it. Not only are we supporting good causes, but we are filling the world with beautiful things. 
Here are a few of the items we have supporting the SPLC. 






We also have several more. They can be found on our etsy page under the Liberty and Justice category. Please read item descriptions to find out which organization the item supports.

If you don't have a lot of money to buy things or aren't interest in jewelry, that's okay. You can help by sharing our page on social media and liking us on Facebook. Facebook.com/PinsWithPurpose/ 
Thanks!

Monday, September 4, 2017

Where to go?

Hello loyal readers whom I've neglected! I've missed all 3 or 4 of you!

Where have I been? I'm so glad you asked. I've been writing non-stop on Pieces, my literary mystery, or possibly my mystery. With light paranormal elements. Yes, I'm still having genre woes.

Something magical happened in the middle of the second draft of Pieces: I leveled up. My writing has reached a new level of maturity. This is wonderful, but it has its drawbacks. More on the drawbacks later.

I've finished the 2nd draft and am already plowing through the 3rd draft, which is mostly revising and editing rather than rewriting, which is awesome. It's also a lot of deleting, because I still have a problem with too many words. More on that in another post.

So, those drawbacks I mentioned. I'm no longer feeling my older novels. You know, that vampire novel I started 7 years ago? Yeah, that one. My first born child. I love it, but I'm not sure I can get back into writing it. All those bad drafts are burned into my brain. It's hard to explain, but I know a lot of writers eventually wind up putting their first books away. I didn't want this to happen, but I'm just not feeling it anymore.

My other problem? I'm not sure what to do with my second novel, City of Secrets, which I began releasing chapter by chapter. It's still here on my blog, but I'm not sure what I want to do with it anymore. The serial site didn't work out the way I'd hoped. I'm not against continuing to release it on my blog, I'm just not sure anymore.

What am I sure of?

Finishing Pieces. I plan to have that done by the end of the year. By "done" I mean ready to query. It's happening.

I'm also sure of this other brand spanking new idea that's brewing in my mind. I know, I know. Should I start a new novel when I have two old ones kicking around? Maybe not, but I think the new one could get written faster and better than those older ones. I've evolved, and my stories have evolved with me.

These are the hard problems writers have. Letting a baby go is scary, but moving on to bigger and better stories is wonderful.

Don't forget to like me on FB! Facebook.com/beckymunyonauthor