Frustration and Musings

Hey guys,

I know I haven't posted in 6 months but I'm honestly fed up with myself and my inability to get past the idea/plotting stage of a story to the actual writing. Even forcing my self isn't working. I tried nano and went absolutely nowhere. I'm talking like 6000 words max.

However, I've joined a couple of those publisher communities (i.e. swoonreads.com) where you can post your stories online and depending on community feedback they have voting rounds and if you get high enough your story will be looked at by editors of the publication and then the 'winner' or top book of that period will be published.

I'm seriously thinking about  submitting IWOAK to the community and see how it does. Mind you, I might age the characters up a bit, first year uni at the max for Judi and the girls just to make certain aspects of the story more realistic. I'm not sure on that yet, but it's an option, especially since I think there's not  a lot of difference between a First year college/uni student and a highschool student except there's less parental supervision and more sexy times. Except, Judi isn't about that life, so I think it'll be good to contrast her coming into her own sexually with someone who you think would push the issue vs. the 'good' boy she was with who she ended up leaving in the beginning because he didn't respect her boundaries.

I'd also have to show her and AJ more, because during the rereads I didn't find them interacting enough on screen, and while I do want Judi to be a large focus since it's her life, I don't want the fact that only AJ's problematic behaviour to be the majority of what you see of him with her. I want the cute moments as well while still showing that her changing wasn't because she got a man, but because she found herself with people who didn't put her down under the guise of 'helping' her.

Anyway, that was something I was considering but I'll have to get off my ass and actually edit IWOAK instead of stopping halfway though a reread swinging between liking it and bemoaning the fact that I already posted it online without making it tighter/cleaner.

Regardless, it's going to have to be rewritten because once I have FFYT done, I'll want to alter IWOAK so the timelines match better since FFYT is a sort of prequel/sequel and you can see why everything happens the way it does hopefully without being boring.

I don't know, what do you guys think? Should I attempt swoonreads or just sit my ass down and try and get it pubbed the traditional way or even selfpub it at some point? No matter which option I choose however, I'm going to need some betareaders to tell me what they think of the chapters/the story and how it compares to the old version so definitely watch this space because I'll be doing a call out, though knowing me not as soon as I (and you) would like.

So below will be a quick summary of where I stand with my other stuff and then below the cut there's a snippit from a contemporary novel I don't think I've ever shared with you. This was a bit of a brain spew I had so there's a lot of info dumping but I think the kernel of the idea is solid. I haven't figured out the characters fully yet so no guarantees if/when that'll be done and names are fully subject to change.


(I also think I need to write something that doesn't have a female friend being shady. Or even girls being horrible to each other over a man, it fosters the idea of competition for boys affections and I'm not cool with that at all.)

Fall For Your Type
Oh Missy and Vince. I have your drama, I just don't know how to show it. I want to show when they first meet (15/16) and the reason why Missy doesn't trust him, as well as show how he became involved with the Goblins since he doesn't seem like the type.

I don't know if I want to show them meeting for the first time as the first chapter or have something from the now and then show a flashback because what I had original wrote has blocked me on the rest of the story. They feel like two different stories because even though their base motivations are the same (to be independent, to be loved, to be needed) what influences them has changed drastically as well as what they're willing to do to get it.

So they're the same people that we got to see glimpses of through Judi's eyes/memories but at the same time, they're more since they're the stars of this story so they won't be as carefree since you'll be seeing everything, not just parts.

Choices (AJ's POV)
I have a few more drabbles that I need to finish from him and yet I can't find his voice. I want to show his reasoning for leaving her alone so often on her birthday (although I think I'll be rewriting that scene in the second draft, tightening it up and making him stick around more since, as someone pointed out, that's the place where his story was most likely to get exposed, why did he leave her alone so much? I mean, I know why but it's not clear so I need to make it so and more realistic. But I'm just having so much trouble with his voice, he seems too poetic or too bland so that's a  no go. But I'll figure it out.

One More Night
Let me tell you about this piece of argharhgh. I was on a roll with the two prologues, I think they set up the back story quite well without being too much of an info-dump. I have a clear outline of where I want/need the story to go but I can't get the first chapter off of the ground. I've rewritten the opening quite a few times so I think I need to look at the characters and remake them until I have something that will just flow or rewrite the whole plot for the modern day portion until it'll just work for me.

So I think I might do another 'prologue' thing except from his POV showing the aftermath of her death and see if that'll be the jumpstart for the rest of the story. He's sort of very beige to me at the moment, but I think it's because I decided to play it safe for him in modern times and I need to shake it up.

But on the other hand, I really like the main female character. I love the way you see her surviving as a gladiator and then her trying to survive in the modern world but I'm trying to do it without falling into too many tropes/stereotypes. And I want to show the similarities with her 'soul' while showing how different lifestyles shaped her differently, although that compare/contrast will be seen from his POV since he's the only one who remembers her from before. Or at least, that version of her.



UNTITLED

 

Chapter One

 

"Let me just get this straight. You're pregnant. By my boyfriend." It wasn't actually a question more a statement of what I had just heard but a part of me still waited for her to deny it, to start to cackle and say I had misheard or that she was joking or just something.

"Your ex-boyfriend," she said quietly, her voice getting softer at each word as I began to giggle. If there was one person who should know better than to correct me on that it was her, Miss. Estella Duncan, my best friend, confidante and ‘bosom buddy’ circa the Anne of Green Gable Years.

She’d been there when I had first met him, my best friend and his enemy until she realized that they had a shit ton in common thanks to a debate in Civics class back in grade ten. The three of us had been best friends for the rest of high school, me and her going all the way back to elementary school when she punched my sister in the face for bullying me before she realized that’s how my family showed affection.

She’d been the one to get the rum and poured the shots when I realized I had liked him as more than that in grade eleven and he’d been serious about one of the girls who made my life hell.

She’d jumped around like an idiot with me during our second year of university and he’d actually asked me out and she’d been a shoulder to cry on when he had decided that ‘we weren’t working out, but we should still be friends’ three years later.

And now she wanted to clarify shit?

"Jordie?" She watched me, her eyes wide and I finally understood what her mother meant when she said that Essie had a tendency to get this dumbass look on her face when she did something wrong but tried to play innocent.

That made me laugh even harder, because I never thought I’d see the day I would agree with her mother about Essie. No, Estella, because today wasn’t the time to care about her feelings when she clearly didn’t give a flying fuck about mine.

“Are you mad at me?” I doubled over as my stomach began to burn, my chest feeling like someone had stomped on it and my eyes were hot and gritty. I tried to get control of myself, inhaling deeply around the plum seed that I had apparently swallowed during lunch and hadn't realised until now, the lump in my throat trying it’s very best to block my airways.

I took some deep breaths, choking back the sounds coming out of my mouth that were no longer sounding like my laugh and had taken on a shrieking quality.

I was almost under control and then he walked in, looking at the two of us before his face dropped and he turned accusing eyes on Estella like she had betrayed him and then I was laughing again, harder, my skin feeling tight, tears streaming down my face as I struggled for breath, sliding off of the couch and onto the floor when they tried to comfort me as if this was like the time they went to the movies without me, like my best friend hadn't been fucking my boyfriend, excuse me, ex-boyfriend,  and got knocked up.

It was like the punch line to some trashy joke, and I wheezed even harder, unable to get air in my lungs as my stomach and chest and head started to hurt, my laughter causing me physical pain.

I had to slide off of the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest so I could rest on it, tears and snot soaking my brand new work pants bought for too much money because they made my ass look good and Antony had wanted to talk to me about something, and I had figured that if he could screw random chicks in our home two weeks after our break up then I would show him how little I cared. Of course, turned out the chick wasn't that random.

That set off a new round of giggles except I was sobbing not laughing and I felt like I was dying. I had been so good about not letting him see me cry or look distraught over his lets go back to friends nonsense but now I couldn't stop if I tried.

I cried harder, ignoring the comforting hand on my scalp as I tried to get up and away from them. For some reason my hands wouldn’t help me rise and she was back to petting my hair, murmuring something that I couldn’t make out over the roaring in my ears as she ran her hands over my scalp the way she had when he’d broken up with me.

“Stop touching my hair. I don’t like people touching my hair,” I managed to choke out, batting her hand away even as I tried to move my hand away from her touch.

"Jordie?"

I reached for my bag because my legs clearly weren’t working, digging through it for my phone so I could call someone to come for me. I couldn't stay here with them. Not in the house we'd saved up and bought joking all the while that Essie would be the live-in nanny and cool aunt to our kids until she was ready to 'stop have single people fun' and settle down.

I swallowed hard, scrambling to my feet at that last thought because Essie was pregnant.

"I'm going to throw up," I hiccupped, the words broken and staggered as I lurched for the bathroom, the container of butterscotch and caramel ice-cream I had grabbed in an attempt to cheer Essie up falling to the floor and splattering all over the lush rug Estella and I had fought for, and elbowing Antony away when he tried to touch me. I just managed to get into the bathroom and lock the door before everything in my stomach was coming back up.

You'd think that since all I'd had for lunch was a salad and then a few scoops of ice cream it wouldn't burn so much when it came back up but God did it burn. It was like acid in my throat and mouth, burning my lips as it escaped to splash into the toilet.

I don't remember the throwing up all that much once the first bit left my mouth but I do remember thinking that this was what betrayal tasted like; bitter, burnt butterscotch and caramel that had a sour aftertaste as if it had spoiled while also being sweet and cloying and too familiar.

I had put my cell phone in my pant pocket and I pulled it out dialing automatically, then hanging up as I heard Essie’s voice coming from the other side of the door as well as from the speaker on my phone.

I swallowed another giggle that wanted to burble up, the fact that I don’t really have friends coming through as I stared at my sent calls list.  I’d always been a big believer in the idea that it didn’t matter how many friends you had, what mattered was the quality of friends you had. 

Also, I was shy to the point that it was pathological. Or at least, that’s what my sister the therapist said. She also disapproved of my friendship with Essie and Antony, because they enabled me and she didn’t think our dependence on each other was all that cute. [JC1] 

 Old habits were hard to break, but I sure as hell would try.

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