Anya Bast

Last week was a busy one for me. I finished the first draft of Witch Fury, and I completed all the edits on Witch Heart. *whew* Except for the final proof read, I don’t have to worry about Witch Heart anymore. Witch Fury still needs a lot of work, though. That book will go through at least two more drafts before I send it off to my editor.

Yesterday I also started plotting a new novella. I’m itching to begin writing it, but I need to map it out a little more before I dive in. That’s what I plan to do today. I need to delve a little deeper into my characters and find out what makes them tick. I have to decide whose story it is primarily–the hero or the heroine’s?

By the end of the day I’ll probably know a lot more about how the “chase” will go.

There’s a common thread that runs through all romance novels, no matter the sub-genre. Usually either the hero or the heroine is doing the “chasing”. Nine times out of ten, it’s the hero chasing the heroine. Generally that’s because most romance novels focus on the heroine–it’s mostly her story, her journey–and she’s the one with the most emotional baggage. That baggage prevents her from jumping right into a relationship with the hero. He needs to pursue her and convince her that she loves him and will be happiest with only him.

It’s not always the hero doing the chasing, sometimes it’s the heroine. And in some books neither of them wants a relationship, but it ends up happening anyway. But I mostly seem to read stories in which the hero chases.

I tallied up my own novels and found they range the spectrum. When I write there tends to be a natural “chaser” who emerges, and that chaser tends to be the character who has the least amount of personal baggage. Or sometimes, like in Witch Fire, they both resist–but falling in love happens despite them.

So, here’s my question for you–what sort of story to do you most enjoy reading? Do you like it when the hero is the one to pursue the heroine or vice versa? Or do you enjoy a mix? What scenarios do some of your favorite romance novels feature?

Well, this is my personal cycle of anxiety, anyway. The creation of a novel brings with it a roller coaster of emotion.

I start research on a new novel. There is excitement! Geeky joy! The glomming of lots of new books to read in order to help me build my world! Yay! Yayayayayayayay!

During the plotting stage — more happy, happy, joy, joy! The creation of new characters? Bliss! Discovering their pasts and all the deep, dark secrets that drive them throughout the book? Wheee!

I start the novel and look forward to writing every day. I luuuuurve it with a passion that gets me up from my fluffy bed at six every morning to write before my tornado, er, daughter wakes up. There are occasional bouts of dark ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit.

I finish the first draft and go into the editing stage, which is intensive for me. Happy, happy, yet far more frequent incidences of ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit.

I complete all revisions (which take me almost as long as writing the first draft) and send it off to my editor. I’m satisfied with my story and the way I told it. It could be no other way, after all. *shrug* I feel I have done justice to my characters. Yayayayayayayayay!!! *drinks champagne with husband*

First round of edits from editor arrives. I realize that while I can change sentence structure and move paragraphs around, ect, I can’t make any major changes to the book. Eeek! Anxiety sets in. Lots of ohmygodthisSUCKSandeveryonewillhateit. Lots and lots of second guessing myself.

Final proofreading stage. Same dealio as edits, except I have talked myself into my zen place now, so I’m feeling better about the whole thing.

Book release. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Lots of joy! My book is out there and people are reading it. Ohmygod…my book is out there and people are reading it? Eeeeeeeeeeek! What if everyone hates it? What if it totally sucks? Ack! Blarg! Blargity blarg blarg blarg! *vomits in trashcan* And yet…my anxiety is also mixed with this euphoria born of having my story out there in print.

Gradually the anxiety fades back into peacefulness as I see that not everyone hates my books *wipes sweat from brow* Whew! I mean, I can’t expect to please everyone but most people seem to be enjoying it. And all is well. S’okay. Zen place is found once more.

And the cycle starts again.

Welcome to a peek inside my head. Scary, huh? 😉

This post brought to you by the first round of edits on Witch Heart.

I am about 40% finished with Witch Fury and rapidly reaching the halfway mark. It’s misleading to say I’m “40%” finished, however, because there’s always so much cutting, rearranging, adding, rewriting, ect during my editing portion of the book writing process. But this is how far along I am in the initial draft.

The male lead is infuriating. He won’t do what I need him to do. Sometimes characters are like that. You create them to be a certain way and then their personalities make “dealing” with them difficult. In this case, the hero is stoic, untalkative, gruff and uncooperative. He was like that in Witch Heart too, but in that book he was only a secondary character. I’m going to have to get the whip out soon.

I’m writing this morning, but will probably knock off at some point today to take my daughter to the zoo. It’s beautiful here. I hope it’s half as pretty where you are.

If you have a second, be sure and check out Lauren Dane’s new cover for Fated. Also, go on over and take a peek at Megan Hart’s cover for her next Spice release, Stranger. They are both incredibly pretty!

Kissing scenes are hard to write anyway, but the first kiss scene? Argh! The pressure! The expectations! It makes it all the harder. You have to get it just right, you know? The charged erotic climate. The blossoming attraction between the hero and the heroine that might, juuuust might turn into something more.

You have to nail the sensuality of it. The slow glide, lip to lip. The taste of each other’s mouth. The scent of their skin. The slip of tongue against tongue that sends tremors of want through them both. The twining of their breath, a little bit of their souls. How to get it exactly right… What are their hands doing? Are his hands at the small of her back, holding her flush against his chest? Are hers curled into the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders?

It makes me crazy getting the details straight.

As you might be able to tell, I’m writing a first kiss scene right now. I’ve rewritten it several times. 😉

Not holding this one up as an example of a good kiss scene (I’m waaay too critical of my writing to ever think that), but I do like this one in Water Crystal (Ellora’s Cave).

~*~

Excerpt from Water Crystal, by Anya Bast (Copyright 2008, all rights reserved)

Cross posted to the Bradford Bunch Blog

Recently I’ve been hearing stories about writers doing rash things when they’ve been unable to sell their work. Quitting forever (is a popular one), but some people even hurt themselves physically over what they perceive as a failure. (I use the word perceive because I have a much different definition of failure than most people.)

On the happy flip side of this, one of my dear friends Lauren Dane has sold two books to Berkley Heat recently! I have watched her from the beginning, before she sold to Ellora’s Cave. Over the years I’ve observed her unwillingness to never give up, even when she thought things looked their darkest.
It took me ten years to sell my first book. During that time, I endured a bad agent relationship, and amassed enough rejection letters to wallpaper two rooms. I even I did quit “forever” once. I meant it, too, and didn’t write again for three years until I realized I was being dumb and I should be doing the one thing I loved, regardless of whether or not I sold. Once I started writing purely because I loved it, that’s when everything fell into place for me.

Of course we want to sell to publishers. Writers don’t want to exist in a vacuum. We want to share our words and worlds with other people.  That’s why we don’t simply just write for the joy of it and simply slip our finished product under the bed. We write for the the joy of it and try to sell that work to the world to read. And it’s a hard sell in most cases. Sure, once in a while you read about someone who never had to struggle, (and secretly we hate them. Heh.), but most of the time it takes years of blood, sweat, and commitment to finally break in.

It’s the result of art meeting commerce. It’s an uneasy match most times, and heartbreaking for those who have produced art that isn’t marketable.

The bottom line is that to pursue this path, you must have perseverance. Perseverance is not a guarantee that you will eventually sell, but without perseverance odds are you won’t. Writing is not an easy career path. Choose it because you love to write. Don’t choose it because you think you’re going to make a lot of money. You probably won’t. Choose this path because you love the “work” and, above all, persevere.

If you can keep an image in your mind of who you want to be and work toward making it real, chances are that, (with some stumblings and a few confusions here and there), you’ll succeed. It might take you ten years or longer, but you’ll eventually make a break.

Can you tell me about one time you really had to get your perseverance on?  How did you manage it?

I woke up at 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up to write and do some picky administrative things I’ve been putting off. (Writers have to do picky administrative things. Who knew?)

Going through my email, I found five pieces of email from readers stashed in various places. OY. I have a one touch policy with reader email. I open it and reply to it immediately. When it’s stashed in strange folders, it makes it hard for me to do that. Four bits were about Witch Fire (I’m totally amazed I ever get any at all).  Made me happy. Did not make me happy they were stuck in an unread folder. I replied immediately.

There was also an email about Ordinary Charm. Out of all my Ellora’s Cave books, that one gets the biggest response from readers. Maybe because it’s a witch book? Apparently I’m not bad at writing witches. Hmmm….maybe I should examine that one more closely. Heh. Maybe because the witch is overweight? Not many romance novels, erotic or otherwise with plus size characters.

In other news, I finally hit my stride on Witch Heart. I had to rewrite the beginning twenty gazillion times because getting the book off to the wrong start…? Not good. Finally Adam blew something up and everything fell into place. I set the book in Crocus Hill, St. Paul, Mn (That would be the Summit Avenue area, for those who know). Well, a big chunk of it will be there, anyway. I plan to do some damage. 🙂 Demons run amok and such. Funnily enough, I know more about this area of St. Paul now than when I lived there. Via research and the Intarweb!

Today I am photo-documenting my day as a blogging experiment. If it doesn’t turn out too incredibly boring, I’ll post it soon.

I finished Whisper of the Blade for EC yesterday, happily sent it off, and eased into the wonderful bliss that accompanies the completion of a work and the fulfillment of a contract. I love that short time between projects when you can relax and recharge your creative batteries a little.

But yesterday evening I began to see this scene in my head. It got stuck in there like a song you’re obsessively playing in your mind. I could see everything so clearly. So this morning I gave in and wrote the scene, thinking I just needed to get it out of my head…then kept writing. It was like the words became tribbles or something. I rarely have this happen. Normally writing is hard for me because I over-think everything. It doesn’t just come this way.

The bottom line is that now I feel a compulsive urge to write this story, which is GREAT except for a couple different things…

A.) I have two sequels to write for EC and people keep emailing me about them–the sequel to Ordinary Charm and the sequel to Blood of the Damned.

B.) I have a book for Berkley to write and I really, really, really want to write it, but I need to wait to make sure the proposal for Witch Blood (that would be the sequel to Witch Fire) is acceptable first.

C.) I have been robbed of my Between Project Downtime.

I really need to put my muse over my knee and spank his tanned, muscular butt. I mean, how rude!!

But, hey, I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as I have the time, (and the words are making like tribbles), I’ll follow this trail wherever it leads.

I’m sitting here looking at a blank page and a blinking cursor, wondering what to blog about. Cats? Been there, done that (often). Characters? Done that too. The lure of the vampire, werewolf and other supernatural folk? Been blogged about by many, including myself.

But I could talk about the blinking cursor and the blank page. That perfect nothingness every writer faces when it’s time to start a new project…with that annoying cursor that seems to be thumbing its nose at you if you’re not drawing any ideas. Writing really is like making something from nothing, or, rather, maybe it’s more like pulling a lump from the innermost quagmire of the author’s mind and then shaping it into something recognizable. Sculpting, weaving, those are the analogies I use most when thinking about writing.

I always start with a character—a man or a woman who has a certain personality. I want to see how they react when they’re thrown into certain circumstances. What decisions do they make? How do they react? How do those decisions and reactions drive the plot? I always use the example of Angelo from Water Crystal. That book started with him. I wanted to write about an honorable man who worked for a true villain. That concept intrigued me and I wanted to explore it further, thus, Water Crystal was born.

Normally when I’m confronted with the blinking cursor and a new project, I’ll write a few lines about the character I’m mulling and what I circumstances I want to throw him or her into. Then (usually) I’ll start out by putting him or her in danger or in some high-tension situation. Sometimes I keep that beginning, sometimes not. It’s important I write it in order to get a better feel for his/her personality. That’s really the purpose.

Then I’ll sit down and start to figure out their character more in depth. Sometimes I find out more about him or her–him AND her by this point, since I write romance—than I’ll ever need for the book. This is just more exploratory stuff for my own benefit. (Do you doubt I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid? *g*).

After I’m satisfied with that progress, I’ll plot. I used to be a pantser (a writer who writes without plotting, by the “seat of her pants”), but little by little, book-by-book, I’ve found that I prefer to plot first. I always leave some wiggle room, though, in case I have to take an unexpected turn down the writing road.

That’s usually how it goes for me. Sometimes I get a flash of a scene and everything flows directly from there, the plot growing organically (I did that with Edge of Sweetness). I don’t think that one way is better than another way. Whatever ways works best for the author is golden.

If you’re a writer, how do you deal with the blinking cursor, a blank page and a new project?

This is in response to Characters & the Writer over at Smart Bitches love Trashy Novels (I adore those women). I was also recently asked a question along these same lines by a reader, so I decided to blog about it.

How real are my characters in my mind? Do I get so involved with them that the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur and I start to think of them as real people, want to invite them out for coffee? I have to say that I don’t go that far. Although I definitely do develop an emotional attachment to them because when I’m writing a book I’m in their heads 24-7. Even when I’m not writing their stories, I’m thinking about their stories. I mean, really, I probably spend more time with my characters than I do my husband or my friends.

When a book comes to a close and I have to leave these characters that I spent every day with for months on end, I cling to them for a while. It’s a little like grieving, I guess. I don’t think it’s an uncommon phenomenon for writers. After all, we’ve created these characters, set their little fictional hearts to beating. We’ve put them through trials and tribulations and all these (literally) character-building experiences. We’ve, even unwittingly, imbued parts of ourselves in them, little snippets from our subconscious minds. Of course we’re going to get attached to them a little.

So, I can draw the line between fantasy and reality and I know my characters aren’t real. I can’t invite them out for coffee, even though that would be really cool! Maybe in an alternate universe…. However, I do become emotionally invested in them as their stories play out. I do fall in love with them a little.

And when I write “the end” on a book, I do mourn their absence in my life for a time. So much so that it takes me a while to start a new book, in fact. Maybe somewhere deep inside I feel I’m being unfaithful or something.

There is a point when I’m writing that the characters do take over the story and drive the events. The plot is moved forward by the sheer force of their personalities, as a result of the decisions they would make because they think a certain way or would act a certain way. When that happens, it’s freakishly like I’m on auto-pilot, subject to the whims of the characters I’ve created. But I know when that happens, it’s a good thing because it means I’ve created (hopefully) characters strong enough to carry the story and (hopefully) win the hearts and minds of the readers.

So, really, when the characters become real enough to hijack the story…that’s a good thing. A little bit crazy, maybe, but a good thing. 🙂

And, you know, us writers kind of make a career out of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, don’t we?