Ace of Arts Update: Chapter 5

I’m kinda amazed that I’m still not making time for more than one chapter a week right now. Well maybe a better word is “disappointed.”

The good news is that this is probably my favorite chapter so far. Chapter 5 is about protagonist Megan interacting with Brady in homeroom and finding out some stuff about him that suggests he is not the jerk she has always thought he was (though she’s still wondering if he’s a liar). I did kinda feel like she said too many words in the chapter though. She’s pretty reserved and usually quite reluctant to say anything at all, and I think I could pull back on some of her dialogue since this has to be a new record for her.

And there’s also been a bomb dropped on her about diversifying her portfolio so now she’s dealing with that too. Hopefully I’ll get it strung together soon enough.

Chapter 5 was 2,540 words and brings the book’s total to about 12,000 words.

I think I need to bring Megan’s sister back for Chapter 6 and build on some of her home life stuff because that’s going to be important. I don’t want to linger there too much though because I want to get her back to school and throw Brady at her again. That’ll be fun because I’ve kind of written that part already, back when I first wrote about these characters in 1999.

Ace of Arts Update: Chapter 4

It’s much slower going over here than I thought it was going to be. I think I’m okay with that, though.

I’m not having a problem writing this. I’m just not deciding to sit down and write often enough. I should probably do something about that, but at the same time, I know it’s not a race. It’s not like I’m doing NaNoWriMo. It’s not like I’m trying to write like the wind to impress anyone. So I think I like balancing the writing of this novel with all the other things I’m continuing to do (consistently update two webcomics and two YouTube channels, write for my four blogs, read a book a week, make creative things, and see people I care about).

I did not use my time wisely over the four-day weekend attached to Thanksgiving, sadly. I wrote ONE chapter over the weekend and that was it. I’m happy with the chapter.

Chapter 4 is only about 1700 words, and it’s mostly about Megan in art class. I don’t know about the pacing here. It seems like she’s now spent three of the four chapters waffling about whether she’s going to apply for a scholarship. Not exactly thrilling material here folks. I do want it to be established how much inertia is actually acting on her to keep her from making that leap, but maybe I don’t need this much. At least the chapter did an okay job giving us the mini-culture of her classroom and inserting another conversation with her art teacher. (And it continued the pattern I’ve established where the even-numbered chapters open with one of Megan’s specialized lucid dreams–a pattern I intend to break when I start breaking all the other patterns in her life.)

The book overall is about to hit 10,000 words. The next chapter will revisit the character Brady. I’m anxious to get his plot moving.

Published Short Story: “On the Inside”

My short story “On the Inside” is now available in the fourth issue of James Gunn’s Ad Astra.

Read it here.

adastra

 

 

 

“On the Inside” is set in an alternate world in which the sexes of male and female are strictly separated in terms of their gender roles and elemental education. Protagonist Lihill was determined at birth to be a boy, but she knows in her heart she’s a girl, and her story is about trying to be seen, heard, and believed.

Ace of Arts Update: Chapter 3

I thought I was going to get a lot of writing done this week, but then things happened.

The new word count is 7,976, with Chapter 3 weighing in at 2,545 words.

In it, I have introduced the not-useless guidance counselor–his name is Mr. Navarro–and I’ve gotten Megan moving with her motivation to consider going to college. We also got to meet her classmate Brady, who’s pretty damn important in the book.

I’m not sure how exactly that development is going to look in the context of the story though. Megan is clearly irritated by Brady’s very existence, and all her mental narration casts him as a total asshole, but his actions in the chapter aren’t at all asshole material. I want this to suggest some layers of resentment and frustration for her that she’s not really willing to acknowledge consciously, but I worry that readers will oversimplify and think she’s just being a jerk. Guess we’ll see. All I can do is put stuff there. I can’t control what people do with it. I’ll figure out later what level of nuance I need to use.

Also, I’m really not a settings person–I tend to describe conversation and interaction and mental experiences but not so much the world around people. I’m working really hard against my inclinations for this story because I feel like the protagonist would look at her environment a lot more than I do. I want her to filter the world around her through at least something like an artist’s eye–which is not to say she romanticizes anything, but she does notice stuff. There should be a lot of details of the surroundings blended into her experiences. I hope it won’t look shoehorned in since it’s not my strength.

That’s it for now!

Ace of Arts Update: Chapter 2

Finished writing the second chapter of the book I started at the beginning of this month. It’s not going too quickly. Not sure why. I have time to work on it right now; just haven’t really felt like it (except for the times I did feel like it and did so).

The new chapter is only 1,750 words long, bringing the manuscript to 5,429 words now. You get to see the inspiration for Megan’s drawings (though I don’t make that 100% clear until I guess the end of the chapter), and you get to meet her sister, Dyane.

I’m not sure what I think about her. She’s not quite what I expected, though that’s pretty common for me when I think up characters and then write them down. I’m a little worried that she’ll come across like a stereotype.

An earlier book of mine, Finding Mulligan, is New Adult but I entered it as YA in a contest once. One of the judges praised me for actually having a YA heroine whose family life isn’t horrible. “The parents are married and aren’t at each other’s throats and nobody’s experiencing abuse! Bravo!” So I guess it’s kind of become a cliché that our YA leads are coming from broken or dysfunctional homes. I’m a little worried about that because not only does Megan live with neither parent–she lives with her older sister in a dubiously legal situation–but the sister is clearly not a competent guardian.

Which I think is realistic given her sister is only twenty-four, and it’s not like Megan is much younger. (She’s eighteen, so she doesn’t technically need a legal guardian, but before she turned eighteen, her sister was acting as her guardian.) I don’t want the story to be too stereotypical and rely on broken-family tropes to manufacture problems. The focus of this book isn’t honestly on Megan’s home life, but I’m sure it will figure in, because it has to.

I initially conceived Dyane as sort of emotionally abusive in her interaction with Megan, but as I thought about it more, I wanted them to have a much more complicated relationship, where Dyane isn’t exactly happy that she’s had so little time to be a child but she loves her sister and watches out for her in weird, sometimes misguided, sporadic ways. I wanted there to be some clear love there even if her sister’s very immature.

I think the sisters’ interaction came out pretty good though. Megan’s clearly executing a practiced series of actions while dealing with her sister, which suggests her emotional state coming home at 3 AM is not uncommon at all, and Megan makes concessions for her sister that she doesn’t for others. I’m just not sure if this is a good place for this interaction yet, though. I’ll figure out how to arrange these chapters later, I’m sure, and I did want to get Dyane on the page as soon as I could, but now that it’s written, it kind of feels like a lull and I worry about whether it will mess with the pacing.

I have to send Megan to school in Chapter 3 so wish me luck.

Novel Update: Ace of Arts

I’m pleased to announce that I did indeed start writing my new novel on November 1. Having 3600 words of a new book done is pretty badass.

Also, I doodled a Megan.

Blurry doodle
That thing on her nose is a nose ring, btw, don’t know if it’s clear

I got a better “look” at her in this first chapter, and though there weren’t any surprises for me about how she came across, I’m not sure how we’ll I’ll handle someone with such a pessimistic world view for an entire novel. I don’t want the book to be about her becoming an optimist or anything–it’s more about learning the circumstances under which it is beneficial to broaden one’s horizons and which it is beneficial to stand one’s ground–but I just hope the complaining and negativity doesn’t get grating for the reader. I guess that’s something I’ll only find out about when test reader time comes.

My first chapter is about Megan going to a gallery showing in which she has a piece. She’s clearly there reluctantly, but is also curious about what people think of her work. I managed to establish a few constants of her life: that she does not expect to ever “actually” make anything of herself or go to college or succeed as an artist; that she has a complicated relationship with her older sister; that her art teacher has been in her life for a fair amount of time and knows details about her living situation; and that there’s something mysterious about how she comes upon the subjects of her drawings.

I also established a few tone and setting details through background details. At one point her teacher pulls out a phone, which suggests it’s in modern times or thereabouts because otherwise she wouldn’t have a mobile phone. (This is kinda significant because the old short story from which I stole the characters was written in 1999, and nobody had cell phones.) And one of the art projects Megan looks at in the gallery is a humorous depiction of the artist’s coming out as gay, which suggests she’s going to school in an area that would allow such a piece to be part of a high school art show. And Megan gets to the gallery on a city bus and has no plans to get home (the buses stop running while she’s still out); her “plan” was just to stay out all night until the buses start up in the morning, which makes it pretty clear nobody’s following up on her safety or making sure she’s taken care of. (She’s also clearly not intimidated by the idea of hanging out in public places during the wee hours, which suggests she does not consider herself particularly vulnerable.)

I think the next chapter will involve some introduction to her artwork method and some interaction with her sister. And by Chapter 3 I definitely need to introduce Brady, who’s really important to the rest of the story–a boy in her homeroom who is instrumental in her figuring out the rest of her life. I’m really looking forward to finding out how it all comes together. 🙂

New Novel: Ace of Arts

“Ace of Arts” is my placeholder title for the new book I’ve started writing. Though I’m liking it more and more as I’m getting used to its association with the project.

I’ve been planning to write this book for a long time–though I have not formally outlined it–and it uses characters from a short story I wrote in 1999. I wrote its first chapter on November 1, 2015, and the book is now officially in progress.

It’s a YA contemporary novel with an asexual protagonist, detailing Megan’s adventures as she struggles with relationships and attempts to get into art school.

See you on the other side!

New book on the horizon

I think I’ve decided to start writing my next book after my Halloween party this year.

I’m making no promises about starting immediately on Sunday or anything (although I might), but I really want to start writing this. It is not going to be a NaNo novel. It is not going to be a thing I rush to get done at all costs, though if I write at my usual pace it’ll come out pretty damn fast. I have a vague goal of finishing it by the end of the year, but I’m not going to sacrifice quality if I just can’t do it.

Stuff I know about the book so far:

  • It is a contemporary YA book with very slight magical realism flavor.
  • The protagonist’s name is Megan.
  • Megan is asexual and homoromantic. She doesn’t know that at the beginning of the book.
  • Megan is a very serious artist. She likes to draw cities and buildings and inanimate objects, and prefers to draw in ink.
  • Megan is a senior in high school.
  • She is trying to get into art school based on the enthusiastic reception of some of her drawings at a show.
  • Megan lives with her older sister Dyane.
  • Megan is on the tall side of average, heavyset and curvy, half Hispanic/half white, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She doesn’t have much hair actually–it’s buzzed to peach fuzz. She has pierced ears and a pierced nose.
  • Megan sits behind a boy named Brady in homeroom. Brady is important.
  • Brady is attracted to Megan. Megan is not attracted to him.
  • Megan doesn’t talk very much and is externally kind of intimidating. That’s on purpose.
  • Megan’s sister Dyane is an aspiring actress and has a serious boyfriend. Megan has a loving but sort of disconnected relationship with her sister.
  • Megan had some very bad experiences with boys when she was in middle school because she hit puberty early. When she learns about asexuality, she struggles to decide whether it describes her or whether her bad experiences explain her lack of interest.
  • Megan joins a GSA during the course of the book and dates a girl for some of the time in the book.
  • Megan’s drawings operate on specific rules and go in a certain order that she feels conflicted about breaking when she’s called to diversify her portfolio.
  • Megan sees a school counselor about several things in the book. The counselor is a man, and he’s not useless.
  • Even though Megan learns she is an ace lesbian in the book, her most important relationship in the story is a friendship.

Stuff I don’t know yet:

  • A title. But for now I’m tagging my posts “ace of arts” because that’s funny.
  • What the deal is with Megan’s parents.
  • Megan’s last name.
  • The exact circumstances of her crisis with getting into art school.
  • Megan’s girlfriend’s name and what her “deal” is, except in my head she’s kind of a jerk and probably has cool hair that’s at least two colors.
  • How exactly Megan’s voice will come off in the book.
  • How exactly the sorta-magical-realism bit will go, though I suspect it will feel a little like lucid dreaming.

I’m excited to get started, but also worried it will fall on its face and just turn into a ramble-fest that eclipses the plot.

So, you know, the same thing I feel before starting every book. 😉

Published Paperback: The Invisible Orientation

The Invisible Orientation is now out in paperback.

You can get it at various sellers, some of which are listed on my Purchase Page!

The new edition has some updates, corrections, and a little bit of new content. It is not completely rewritten or revamped, but it is new and improved. (And comparatively inexpensive, wink wink.)