Progress update: Butterflies in December

Well, I'm back to work in earnest. After this very difficult autumn, winter is a welcome relief. Cold is somehow cleansing, isn't it? You know, a chill to shake the brain awake or make you appreciate the warmth you left behind. Writing is such a personal thing and for some weeks after my brother passed I wasn't sure my words would return -- how soon or how quickly.

Every life milestone affects us differently. For some authors, writing is cathartic. I find that as well, but I took solace in writing about Joe and for him for awhile rather than drumming up imaginary scenarios for my WIP. His situation was far too real to spend time dabbling in fantasy. I thought. So returning to the work I love isn't cathartic, but it is a necessary and integral part of who I am. I guess I needed some time to be okay with that.

I missed my characters and the mess I got them into. So, the story's been re-read and edited. The first half of the pages have been sticky-tagged for tweaks, and I am on to the second half of the book. Progress continues. I'm about 75 percent of the way through the book with edits. When I finish this second half, I'll re-read and tag those pages. Then I'll re-read the entire book, say a prayer and send it off to my beta reader and my editor.

You can't see me shaking with nervous anticipation, but I am. Note to self: Butterflies are good, girlfriend. Butterflies are good.

Peace.
Stefanie
www.stefanieworth.com

Happy tears and mounting edits

Hard for me to believe that I haven’t blogged since January.  But if you know me – or follow my musings – you know my life is a festival of happenings. There’s always something going on around here that competes with or supplants my writing time. (Not my desire – just the hours I have to execute.) Just as importantly though, I don’t consider these real-world intrusions as negatives. Take February through August, for example. In those months, we completed another senior year of high school and summer of college prep in my house. Whew! Two down. One to go.

Now that the chaos has calmed, I have to say that I miss my middle child. Desperately. Not that I didn’t miss my oldest just as much when he went off to college. In fact, I cried every day after he left – each time I passed his high school on my way to work…or the grocery store…or the movie theater…. You get the idea.

This time, with this son, I miss him in a way that’s nearly palpable. I get teary whenever I hear Big Sean sing "I hope you learn to make it on your own. If you love yourself just know you'll never be alone... And when you get it all just remember one thing - that one man could change the world." Those lyrics ring so true. I had to pull off the road one day and cry. Really. But like I told my youngest, my happiness for her brother outweighs the sadness.  So his going away isn’t any less difficult, just different. In the way that each child is different.

That said, sending my son off to frolic with the higher learning crowd has added a little more than 100 minutes of non-pickup/drop-off time to my daily schedule. (You don’t think about that while it's going on or else you'd talk yourself out of taking on the task. Or go crazy.) For years I've wished for extra hours in my day and – BAM! – like magic, I got ‘em. To top that off, my youngest is back in school and has freed me from her vampirish stay-up-all-night summer schedule.

 

So voile! I’m back to editing like the author I am. Here’s my magic to-date:

 

Gaging by numbers alone, my progress count would deceive me into thinking that I’m almost halfway through revisions. HA! I’ve actually added 8,424 words to the story. (Mind you, I cut 4,500+ words by deleting a chapter early on.) This means my actual word count – if I submitted the story “as is” today – would be 97,170. Oh my.

All that math made my head hurt. LOL Thus, the moral of this blog post is that it’s time to get back to the book. While my son's out learning how to change the world, my goal is to finish editing before autumn passes me by. 

#thatisall #amediting

www.stefanieworth.com
www.facebook.com/stefanieworthbooks

Blog in the Round

I was very excited to be invited to participate in Blog in the Round - 4 Questions and Pass It On by Montlake Romance author Liane Spicer. She and I have traveled some of the same ups and downs in our writing journey and she’s been a wonderful colleague and faraway friend in my writing world. I’m honored that she thought of me. Liane was asked to participate by the fabulous Marissa Monteilh. Blog in the Round is a great way for readers, and other authors, to get to know us better, and it demonstrates the amazing author camaraderie and support that we have for each other.

So, here goes:

What am I working on/writing?

I am about 25,000 words from the end of my latest fantasy romance that features a pretty awful villainess. I have to say that she’s a blast to write. There’s something about her having no sense of remorse that allows the words to flow. She’s easy to define, which makes the heroine – her opposite – easy to define and write as well. When I finish this WIP, I plan to take a break and write a novella or two before diving into the WIP’s sequel.

How is my writing/work different from others in its genre?

When I published Where Souls Collide seven years ago, African American authors who wrote paranormal, fantasy and sci-fi, seemed hard to find. Over the years, I’ve found that’s not really the case. We’re out there, but more importantly (to me), I don’t want my work to be defined by color.

My characters are diverse and their everyday problems – from finding love, to unemployment, to the threat of divorce – are universal. I always work around a theme of second chances because I believe every person and every character deserves another chance to get it right. I just happen to find that so much easier to ensure with a little supernatural intervention.

Why do I write what I do?

My kids have heard the story of how I loved Mio My Son (by Astrid Lindgren) over and over and over. I read it in the fourth grade and I still remember how devastated I was by the idea of eating subtraction soup: the more you ate, the hungrier you got! Who would think of something like that? I guess it got my mind going because I gravitated to stories depicting fantasy worlds. Eventually my fascination spread to my TV viewing because Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and the Night Stalker became my favorite shows. Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Toni Morrison and, later, Anne Rice became my favorite authors.

Not to mention that my mother was an AVID romance reader! I’d go behind her and read as many of her paperbacks as I could. I practically inhaled those books as a teen. It would be many years later before I merged my two reading loves – romance and the supernatural, but once it happened I haven’t really thought of writing anything else.

How does my writing process work?

I sit down and I start writing. Not true. I sit at the computer and usually waste a good 20 or 30 minutes online. I do. But I keep a writing journal and at the start of each month I list 4-5 writing-related goals for the month. They include a target word count, a social network action, something related to industry memberships or craft workshops, and web site tweaks. It’s the word count that gets me offline and on to writing.

When I look at the clock and see how much sleep I can get after two hours of writing (I do have a day job), I pull up my iTunes and start my WIP’s playlist. Music is an integral part of writing for me. My current playlist includes movie soundtrack music (from Inception, Looper and Thor, for example), along with alternative songs from groups like Muse, rock from Evanescence, and pop from Bruno Mars. It’s eclectic but the overall list works together to set a desired mood while specific songs help direct the characters’ actions. 

I write until I either fall asleep, surpass the word goal or the characters stop talking for the night. Then, I log my word count and words written for the day in my journal, make a few notes for the next day and shut off the computer. (But there are always sticky notes nearby because the mind never stops!)

Thanks for dropping in. You can always visit me here or on Facebook or Twitter as well. And be sure to stop by Liane’s page, too.

‘Til next time, happy reading!
Stefanie
www.stefanieworth.com

Write. Now.

Dear WIP,

I'm out in the community repping for the 9-5 this morning and all I can think about is you...

The playlist that draws me in with its sultry strains of Linkin Park, Gia, Likki Li and anything Inception...

That scene where she discovers what's really going on...

The moments he wonders how on earth he lost her...

And my villainness on the war path.

Yes, in this space of day where the crowds have lulled and I'm left to my deepest, dark thoughts, I dream of you, WIP and the surprises you have in store for me tonight. ;)

Forever yours,

Stef

www.stefanieworth.com

I need a man

Well, I'm looking for a hero. And I'm going strictly on looks. He must be worthy of a push pin on my cork board: intoxicating enough to keep me spellbound until I've typed The End. He should not bore me. Every time I look at his face, I have to feel what Fallon (his wife) feels for him. Only I have to feel it more because I'm the one who has to bring him to life on all these pieces of paper that lie ahead of me.

I'm talking tall (let's go with six feet), muscular (not overdone, but purposefully sculpted), savvy, sensuous, sensitive. He ought to be willing and able to cook. And he's not big on housecleaning, but he'll spring for the maid (very personal preference entering the fictional realm there).

Oh, and can he sing. A Musiq, Maxwell, Robin Thicke kind of vibe. Plays the guitar but he's not a playa. I'm flexible on the hairstyle, but he's very well groomed. (In other words, there are two sinks and a huge mirror in the bathroom so Fallon doesn't have to fight him to get ready for work.)

Of course, he's a great lover -- knows when to be gentle and when to put on the power moves. But he's not too insecure to learn a thing or two from his woman.

This man has lived in my head since last year's novella Can You Believe (in The Holiday Inn anthology). I'd leave him there, but I have too many other folks clamoring for my mental mirror these days. I need to make him materialize and relegate him to a square across from my computer. Right now I've got Djimon hanging around as a placeholder, but I'm not trying to fight Kimora for him.

In summary, I need the m-m-good fineness of Terrence Howard, the casual charm of Dwayne Johnson (you know, The Rock), the versatility of Johnny Depp, the youthful vigor of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and the intensity of Laurence Fishburne.

Got any suggestions?