Jean Grey? Just Say No.

For all of my enjoyment and indulgence of X-Men, I have always hated Jean Grey, aka, Phoenix.  This has nothing to do with Famke Jenssen’s performance in the live-action films.  In fact, given her codename is Phoenix, you think I would love her.  But I don’t.  Why?

She’s too powerful.

Okay, so I know she has this whole tragic back story thing, but her telekinesis and telepathy is off the charts.  Stan Lee really did a good job of keeping her in check through morality and the basics of control, but I just can’t get over the fact that if Jean Grey decided to, she could have us all floating in midair.  Or fill us all with so horrible a depression that all humanity kills itself.  Or she could take the Earth’s molten core and toss it as Mars for kicks and giggles.

Okay, perhaps I’m being a little dramatic, but I just don’t think that kind of power is warranted in a first-stage evolution.

That said, in allowing abilities to my empaths and psychics in Strange, I have limited them considerably.  Because I don’t want a Jean Grey on my hands.  However, it recently occurred me that there are a lot of ways to limit an individual’s power.  And when I focus too hard on limiting my characters potential, well, it’s kind of boring.  And maybe that’s why so many people like the Phoenix – because she has the potential to be a major badass and it’s scary and exciting.  But in order to do that, she needs to overcome her own character faults.

Therefore, in writing miss Tuesday Milano, I’ve decided to allow for a few exceptions.  Her power shouldn’t cripple her all the time; she’s grown up with it and has learned, through torment mostly, a bit of control.  Sure, some things literally blow her mind.  But Tuesday is anything but weak.

She’s the girl that will teach everyone not to judge a book by its cover.  So I had better stop worrying about the Phoenix effect and let her live up to her potential.

Character Who?

As I have been editing Strange I have been more and more aware of my believed inconsistencies in Ariella’s character.  I want to her to be off-type for the characters that I usually create, but sometimes I feel as I write her she becomes mush or reverts back to what I am comfortable with.  That bears the question – is it better to write something you are comfortable with, or something that is in-demand?  When is it better to challenge yourself to write differently verses writing believably?  If it doesn’t feel believable because it isn’t comfortable, does that make you a poor writer, or misguided?

I read Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce recently.  I grew up on Pierce’s books and she is one of my most beloved authors.  I realised, as I was reading the end of Beka’s second book, that many of Pierce’s lead characters feel similar to me.  Don’t get me wrong – I like them all (Ali is my favorite, by the way).  Pierce always presents a strong female lead with high morale fiber, despite her motivations.  They are always smart and ambitious, cautious and courteous of those around them, and most times admittedly shy when it comes to relationships.  They exist in all sorts of situations, and yet, they are very similar people.  I don’t respect and love her writing any less for that fact – in fact, I love it all the more because I know I am going to love her characters regardless of their situation.

So as I think about it further, perhaps there is nothing wrong with writing what I am comfortable with – as long as it is not cliched, I will write it better.  I would rather tell a better story than create a world that I cannot stand and get stuck in it.

As for Ariella, I know where her journey will take her and much like Pierce’s characters, the lives of many will rely on her high moral fiber to make the right decision for everyone, not just the easy decision for herself.  And I can twist her quirks and personality any way I want, but in the end, I am proud to have a strong female lead.

Covered Up In Gorgeous

I think that one of my favorite things about writing is getting to create the covers.  There is something terribly exciting about seeing the visual representation of your novel – after all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.  The cover of a book is so incredibly important – it is the first thing that a reader sees and the cover design can easily win a reader.  I’m not a professional graphic designer, and I have no intention of self-publishing, so my personal cover designs will not matter… but nonetheless – seeing that glorious picture in attachment to the words is exhilarating.

Then again, maybe my attachment to the cover is related to a writer’s greatest dream – to have a book published.  A cover is halfway to production, after all.

When Borders was going out of business, I had the good fortune to have my hand in cleaning them out of books, a duty I took very, very seriously.  Maybe of the books I ended up bringing home with me were not authors or series I had heard of before.  My choices were based on three aspects:  my current available money, the blurb, and the cover.

Of all the books I picked up, unarguably the prettiest cover was a book titled Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev.  The artwork was stunning, the texture of the book jacket was wonderful – from all angles it is truly a beautiful book cover.  And I enjoyed it – from one cover to the other!  If not for that alluring, beautiful cover, I would never have purchased or read it.

It makes me wonder – how often do we skip over a book because its cover didn’t stand out to us?  And, of all those missed books – how many of them could we, perhaps, have loved?  The artwork used on a book covers is invaluable in that way.

Do we really judge a book by its cover?  What book have you picked up based on its cover alone?

Editing is Hard Work

While I know I am exceptionally, delightfully bad at updating any and all of my blogs, I must confess, my motivation to edit a novel isn’t much better.  I love, love, love tearing apart other peoples’, but mine… it’s harder.  My inclination is to rewrite.  And then my characters get bi-polar and plots get tangled like string and just… ack.

I’m working through Strange at the moment, and I keep telling myself – keep going!  It’s almost at the interesting part!  Whenever I task myself to re-write a story, I get this brilliant idea that something needs to change.  In Fate, I needed to ditch Matheus.  In Strange, I’ve decided that Ariella is too typical of a character for me and she needs to be more… popular.  And bear all the stereotypical popular girl traits.  I’m talking a conglomeration of Mimi from Blue Bloods, Cher from Clueless, and a little Nicole-Kidman’s-standard-character thrown in for spice.  This is not my run-of-the-mill heroine.  It also means she’s from a world I know nothing about.  Now how can I make her this person, and still have her be a complete science geek?  In the world of stereotypes, it doesn’t add up.

Have you ever tried writing a character that’s your polar opposite?  How did it work out?

NaNoWriMo, Day One

This is my third calendar year with NaNoWriMo, and my fifth novel (having competed in one of the summer sessions each year since the start).  Each year the challenges are a little different.

Last summer, I wrote Sprite, which wrote more easily than any other novel I’ve written.  I wish I could say it was because I am growing stronger as a writer, but I think it has more to do with the fact I had a plot for June’s novel.  As I did for ‘Tweens last November.  I have a vague plot for Sparky Jones:  Life on Shuffle this year, but I don’t think it’s going to be the plot that kills me.

Sparky is out of my norm.  Not too far out, but far enough that I am having difficulty making it interesting.  In the past I have written according to a very strict regime of YA sci-fi fantasy wherein you meet the hero, the hero is thrown into a situation and has to learn things, the hero makes allies, the hero uncovers a plot, and the hero fights a huge battle.  Sparky has no fight.  She already knows her allies.  She’s fighting an incognito battle.

Subtlety is not my strong point.  Either I think I’m being incredibly ninja but I’m actually tripping over all the tin cans, or else I am ninja’ing so successfully that I am completely invisible.  How do you build a plot with an enemy that is so small and so subtle that it’s hard to see it unless you look at the right time from the right point of view.

Folks, happy November First!  I’m going to spend the next thirty days teaching myself how to write a book with almost no element of the impossible.

Other participants out there, can I get a “hey-ya”?

NaNoNovel Preview: Sparky’s Cover!

I’ve been playing around with a new idea for a book, one that is playful and simple and inspired by an episode of Eureka.

Details still need to be hashed, but I put together a cover for it today.  Although, I can’t seem to get a lot of the layers to merge properly so the JPG looks the same as the PSD file?  Nonetheless, I like it.  I wanted it to be simple, because so many of my covers are ridiculously complicated and it’s time to have one that stands out a little.

Presenting:  Sparky Jones:  Life on Shuffle.

Why I Write

Kiersten White always makes me smile. Her latest on one of the reasons why she writes. I haven’t posted anything in a while and I thought this may be a nice distraction.