Okay, so as I said in yesterday’s progress report, my words were there but they were just kind of blah. It’s information that’s useful for me to know and might be sprinkled elsewhere in the book, but really isn’t all that interesting for the reader to slog through unless she is interested in decorating and the layout of this particular antebellum home. I was talking to Pot about it before bed and she said she felt like I was having trouble finding my voice. Well I am. Or more specifically Marin’s. I feel like I do okay in Wyatt’s head as he sprang almost fully formed from mine. Marin, as Pot pointed out, has been formed from Wyatt’s rib (I know, what’s up with all the mythology and religious references?), as a match for him. I need to get to know her more fully in her own right. She’s a different kind of character than I’m used to writing. I have always tended toward people with dark and/or tortured (I guess tortured is dark, isn’t it?) pasts. I’m in psychology so I’m all into how people’s personalities and minds get formed. I’m particularly fond of creating really twisted bad guys. But in reality? I am more of a chick lit kind of girl in how I speak and think. Which doesn’t so much come across in House of Cards (and shouldn’t, as it wouldn’t be an appropriate voice for that story), but inevitably leaks through when I’m writing something fresh and raw. So I’ve got to find a happy medium here for what’s going to work for me and balance this natural inclination to snark and my love of dark twisted stuff.
And then Pot made The Suggestion: what if I started a blog for Marin? I could blog some day to day stuff to get a feel for what her life is like, and what she is like (because I’d be blogging AS her). I could even go back and write some backdated backstory posts. She, of course, knew that would appeal to not only the procrastinator in me but just in general. We’re talking about a woman (me) who actually signed up for an email address and yahoo screen name for my heroine in Totem. Just because.
Anyway, I wasted about an hour before bed deciding on which blog service to use (I have used blogger, livejournal, wordpress, and xanga in the past). I wound up creating a second wordpress account for Marin and will be going back and writing about pivotal backstory to begin with and backdating it, and then just sort of doing the day to day to get a better feel for Marin. It will all be private entries and if I am someday published with this book maybe my publisher will think it’s fun and we can link to my website. And wouldn’t you know that once I actually signed up for the account I wasted MORE time trying to come up with a blog title, an appropriate header picture (which I think I will change today), and theme. So you see, I am a complete and total Geek with a capital “G” (if I wasn’t already). And then I find out what Pot has done with her time and felt better. 😀 We truly are well suited.
One thought on “Ascension To Geekdom Complete!”
As you were writing HOC, there were several times when that chick-lit voice started to come out. And it didn’t make sense with the set-up, but I felt bad every time I commented to stomp it out. I really think part of what you’ll be doing is finding a way to combine the lighter and sort of off-beat protagonists with the dark villains and situations that interest you. Because while your villains are dark, it sometimes seems like a struggle against type when you have to write the tortured h/h because they’re more you and you are not so much that.