Thoughts on Writing

Didn't write a damn thing yesterday. Bad, bad Sinanju! No biscuit!

I wrote exactly 2800 words today. Such a nice round number seems suspiciously, well, round. But that's what it came out to. I was as surprised as you are.

I'm not sure how much good it did me, though. I didn't write on anything in particular. Just two separate "sit down and write and see what you end up with" sessions. I saved them, of course. I always save them. Sometime in the future I'll open them up again and quite possibly find something of value in them that I can lift for another story. Sometimes I find a story in them after all. Sometimes I can lift a scene and work it into another story somehow. (The story I sent out Sunday evening was just such a thing. Two originally unrelated scenes that I massaged into a coherent* whole and used as the seed of a finished story.)

I feel like I've temporarily stalled out on the stories I've been thinking about. Probably the negative voices in my head getting in my way. It doesn't feel like that, but it never does, does it? So I guess tomorrow I need to just pick one and get to work on it.

I also feel like I'm still flailing when it comes to plotting. I've read Story (by McKee), I'm reading Plot (by Dibell). I'm getting some better ideas about how to do it, but I'm still feeling my way along. And thinking about trying to outline some stories. I've never outlined. I've always written by the seat of my pants. So outlining would probably be a good idea, if only to try something new and learn from the experience. I've been toying with a couple of ideas for novels. Well, they could be. But...

The thing is, the ideas I keep coming back to? They aren't science fiction. Or Fantasy. Or mystery. Or, they are--but they're not only those things. Or even mostly. They're...romance stories.

(Cue the sound of chirping crickets and raised eyebrows.)

Yeah. Exactly. And not just romance. Erotic romances, or stories with lots of sex in them. Not exactly what I ever intended to be writing. I don't even know why! It's not like I read the damn things.

Except that, you know, now that I think about it--I do, sorta. I read a lot of the current crop of contemporary urban fantasy (also known in some circles as paranormal romance). Werewolves, vampires, witches, sorcerors, demons, mysteries, magic, and lots of heroes and heroines who are hot and horny when they're not trying not to get killed. Throw in some more explicit sex and you're halfway there already!

So maybe I should give it a whirl. Except that I'm conflicted. I'm maybe joining a writer's group. I'm having a story critiqued by them this Friday, and then I'll get a story (or stories to critique) and then if I mesh with the group and their style, I'm in. But it's mostly a genre (and by genre I mean SF/fantasy) oriented group. And smutty romance is not what I'm interested in showing them. Not what I remotely intended to write.

And that right there--"smutty"--is probably part of the problem. Why am I embarrassed about that? Why should I be? If I can write it and sell it, what's the problem? I've been cruising some of the online ebook publishers' sites for this stuff and some of the excerpts I've read.... Some of it's pretty good. And some of it? I don't doubt that I can do better.

But is that it? Am I considering this because it seems easier than writing something else? I don't know, but it's a possibility I can't dismiss just yet. I'm still mulling it over. Further announcements as events warrant....

*At least, I like to think it's coherent. Editors may disagree. We'll see.

Words Written Today: 2,800
Words Written YTD (since May 1): 66,143
Stores in Circulation: 8
Rejections: 3
Stories Accepted: 0