I want to be an author...No, seriously. discussion

I'm glad to see we're finally growing :)
I'm Kelli
I'm from Michigan
I write romance - each book is a little different,and the level of romance is different each time but it's always there.
when I'm not writing, I'm reading or wishing I was writing.

Now it's your turn to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you write.

Hey Kelli,

I'm John, from Oregon. I write YA books and have published one of them. Small group we have here:) How goes the writing these days? Working on anything exciting?

John

Yes it's an incredibly small group, not this small,for long I hope! I'm glad that someone other than myself has posted something!
I'm seriously jealous that you're published :) I can't wait until I can say that I am.
Right now I'm working on something that's a thriller/romance. It's about a wife of a crooked senator who took her two sons and is on the run from her abusive and dangerous marriage who falls for an undercover FBI agent - there's a lot more to it but that's the very short story version.
What about you? What are you working on now? What's your published piece called?

Hey, your story sounds like thriller material. What happens to the wife? What's the book called? My book, Bloodwood, is about a couple of kids, Max and Lydia, who travel to the cold, dark north in search of a missing girl and hidden vampire town.



Right now I'm working on the sequel, The Oddclock, in which the same characters have to journey through time to stop someone from altering the past.

Where did our third member go? Can I ask how long you've been writing? Have any sample chapters?

I'm not sure yet what I should I call it but I'm leaning towards Cardinal Rule... or something lol
I'm not finished with it yet I'm about 80% of the way through the first draft and I have a rough idea of where it's heading. The characters usually smooth it out for me.
Your books sounds good I'll have to check it out. As for our third member I don't know where they went :(
The first story I ever wrote I did when I was 10. It was a school project and most kids only wrote a paragraph. I wrote pages and pages.
I remember bringing it home to my mother and she was impressed and if you knew my mother you'd know that that's saying a lot. My mother doesn't believe in empty praise.
I haven't stopped since. In middle school my friend and I would write stories by each of us writing a chapter and handing it off to each other and then I wrote for myself after that but It was almost a year ago that I decided why am messing around? This is what I've always wanted to do so a year ago I wrote my first serious book. It ended up being WAY too long lol but then I went on to write seven more and working on the eigth and I'm trying to find a publisher that will take me unagented and an agent that will take me unpublished and it's hard but I'm not stopping. :)
I actually have an entire novel up here it's on my page in my writing section.
How about you? When did you start writing?

Kelli wrote: "I'm not sure yet what I should I call it but I'm leaning towards Cardinal Rule... or something lol
I'm not finished with it yet I'm about 80% of the way through the first draft and I have a rough ..."

Wow, that's a lot of writing. How old are you, may I ask? Each of my books (I've written four) took a year or two to finish. The first two were laughably bad and I would never publish them. The third was good but not great. And the fourth, Bloodwood, to my surprise, turned out to be quite thrilling. It's funny though, I've been writing seriously for about six years and you would think, given that amount of time, that I would feel like I know what I'm doing when I sit down and begin writing a story. But I don't. In fact, a lot of times when I begin putting words on the screen, I have a mild, disconcerting sense that I don't know what I'm doing at all. It's bizarre. I would rather not have that happen. I would rather sit down and think, "Okay, I've done this before. I know the formula for a successful novel. Now all I have to do is follow that formula and I'll be alright." But it never works like that. Instead I write and edit and edit some more and then clench my fists and teeth in frustration when things aren't turning out how I want. And then I scrap sentences and chapters and even entire plot lines and begin writing and editing again until, finally, I come up with something that's as close to "mot juste" as I can get it. And at that point, when I have, say, a few good solid chapters in front of me and feel like I know where the story is headed, I finally breathe out relief and think things might actually be okay, think I might actually be able to finish my work. And it's in those moments that all the toil and frustration and hours and words become worth it. It's in those moments I begin to feel like a writer, and it's the greatest feeling in the world.

Okay, I'm rambling! I know you did not ask about all that stuff but I put it down anyway. Happy Wednesday!

p.s. Cardinal Rule is a good title. What's your character's name? What does she eat for breakfast? (I always feel like I can get a sense of a character if I know what she eats for breakfast. Is that weird?)

I'm 23 and I feel the exact same way when I open a new document. I feel like I get better with each book, but I also think every new plot is more challenging than the last so there's this sense of panic in the beginning because I'm often not sure I'll be able to pull it off.
I don't go back, not until everything is out. I just write and the first draft is always a giant sloppy mess and I have to go back through it over and over until I feel comfortable with it and even then I still worry it's not perfect.

Feel free to ramble whenever ;)

P.S. Thanks! I'm glad because naming things hasn't ever come easy for me. I've always been horrible at naming things, even Essay's in school. Of course you ask me the most difficult question lol My heroine's name was originally Tilly McCreary but that was her maiden name and her husband started calling her Matilda because he thought Tilly sounded like a white trash name, so for awhile she went by Matilda Donaghue. Then when she ran and left him and attempted to start over again she called herself Lizzie but I always call her Tilly.
For breakfast (which is totally not a weird question) she eats toast sometimes buttered and what I call white coffee - which is just more milk and sugar than coffee

Buttered toast and cafe au lait (the French term for white coffee): sounds good to me. My character, Max, usually skips breakfast but then eats a huge lunch. He loves burgers and fries. His dad, the wild-haired and bespectacled Dr. Mayhem, has black coffee and a bowl of granola with sliced banana every morning. For dinner he prefers fish to red meat :)

Also, for what it's worth, Tilly doesn't sound white trash to me. I like it. It sounds like the name of a woman who'd live on the coast of Maine and spend her days on a cold, windswept beach, looking across the waves. When I think trailer-park names, I think names like Darlene, Sharlene, Dawn and Crystal. But Tilly and Matilda are good.

John wrote: "Buttered toast and cafe au lait (the French term for white coffee): sounds good to me. My character, Max, usually skips breakfast but then eats a huge lunch. He loves burgers and fries. His dad, th..."

Cafe au lait...I often think about learning French. They have words for everything and I could sound worldly and sophisticated inserting it into casual conversation ;)
Dr. Mayhem has it right though I like my coffee Black. I think I prefer my coffee black. Although occasionally I'll take it like Tilly; cafe au lait. :)
p.s. I ordered your book last night and am anxiously awaiting its arrival.

John wrote: "Also, for what it's worth, Tilly doesn't sound white trash to me. I like it. It sounds like the name of a woman who'd live on the coast of Maine and spend her days on a cold, windswept beach, looki..."

Tilly would love that! I would love that! I don't think Tilly sounds like white trash to me either but her soon to be ex or maybe...late husband Bill has some serious issues.

Kelli wrote: "John wrote: "Buttered toast and cafe au lait (the French term for white coffee): sounds good to me. My character, Max, usually skips breakfast but then eats a huge lunch. He loves burgers and fries..."

Hi Kelli

You want to learn French, not a problem it is not an easy language to learn I warn you. Maybe someone should have warned me a few years back! I'm Sarah I am about to be published no fixed date as yet for my books release. It's a little black dress romance and contains some priceless French quotes! I set my book half in England and half in Brittany/Normandy. One of my main character's, Daniel, is French in fact he is a male model, bronzed god, Adonis very ooh la la!

I live in Brittany France and I have been writing forever! I won my first writing competition at the tender age of 9 the first prize was one Guinea which back in the early sixties was a queens ransom!

Rules to remember in French never pronounce the 'tte' in Chat/te yes it is a female cat but it also has other connotations! cat is therefore pronounced cha, they have a lot of words that have silent endings ready to leg you up at the first opportunity!

And a Preservative in French is actually a condom!

Hahaha! Thanks for the impromptu French lesson! And Welcome to the group Sarah! Congrats on the book. I can't wait until it's available it sounds like it's right up my alley!

Just seeing if anyone on here is still active. Joined because I am from Saginaw, MI and I used to write, but have lost my direction. Only recently started reading again.

Hi! I'm new on here and am from Michigan. I would love to be an author and have been working on my first book for over ten years. Actually I started it back in high school (ten years ago) and the past two years I started writing on it again, but things got busy in my life and again stopped. I would love to get back to writing it and get it finished, fingers crossed - published would be a dream come true! I read in my spare time and recently branched off from my normal Nora Roberts books. =) Thanks for your time.

That is kind of my boat as well Anita.