Off to Some Kind of Start, Part 2

Remember a couple years ago when we were all going back to our old projects at critiquing our opening lines? It's that time again! Writing/blogging buddy Krystal Jane recently posted her new collection, and someone on Twitter just asked about favorite blog posts, so here we go for Round Two. I'll pick up where I left off and see if I've actually gotten any better at this. (I'm guessing not.)

 

Here's Part 1 to recap, from July of 2017 (apologies for the text colors, a casualty of the site redesign)

Hunting Astrid is still brand new and sparkly and shiny, so let's see how my latest release fares under the microscope.

 

“There you are. You almost missed all the fun.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Astrid hurried into the room and wheeled her chair out from underneath her desk. “Some sort of malfunction with the train. We were stuck for half an hour.”

Her coworker Lily snorted without taking her eyes off the screen in front of her. “So much for the best technology this corner of the galaxy has to offer.”

Hello, sci-fi! I've become a fan of starting stories in the middle of a conversation, like here. Not the snazziest, not the worst. I promise things pick up quickly in this opening chapter.

***

How about some fanfic? I did write a lot for Fire Emblem: Three Houses over this summer, which kicked my motivation for my original works into gear. Here's the opening for the first one, which was actually the first fanfic I wrote in quite a few years.

Aelfric couldn’t understand the strange looks and hushed whispers that had followed him around like an irritating swarm of bugs over the course of the evening. After all, why wouldn’t he have wanted to attend Sitri and Jeralt’s wedding? It was a joyous occasion, one the monastery didn’t often host. Such love should be celebrated, he declared to himself.

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of digging that first line. And a note to anyone who's played the FE3H DLC: FUCKIN' AELFRIC, MAN, AMIRITE!? (i rite.)

***

Let's take a look at Fire Beyond the Frost, whose long journey to publication has been chronicled here. To recap: the book was published a year ago after sitting on the shelf in need of a good cleaning for a few years. Before that, parts of it were originally a story written for a former friend's role-playing forum. I have no idea what got edited when, so here's a collection of words that were written sometime in 2019, 2013, and/or 2011.

Dr. Catalina Frost looked out the small window of the spaceship. A few men from the crew scurried around the launch pad of the Blackhill Spaceport. The vessel would be departing within moments. A pleasant female voice came over the intercom, informing the passengers to move toward their seats and prepare for takeoff.

All right, so we know Catalina's going somewhere, which is kind of the point of the whole book. Not too bad. I don't hate myself.

***

Rewinding a little farther, here's the intro to Closing Montage.

The large brown box sat on the doorstep, unremarkable, cast by the shadows of the dwindling sunlight. My heart raced as I pulled the car into the driveway. Though I couldn’t see any writing or labels from where I sat, I knew it didn’t contain another shipment of medical supplies or more useless gifts from well-wishers. This package was special.

You know, this one's better than I remembered it. It drops plenty of hints about the upcoming story, plus it has an element of mystery: what's in the box???

***

Lastly, because I like odd numbers for these types of lists, I'll give you a sneak peek at my WIP, Elemental Forces.

“On your left!”
 

Meg dove to the opposite side, tucking and rolling across the dusty field. The small dragon she’d been battling followed after her, but before it could launch another attack, Ronan brought his sword down on the creature’s neck. The sharp blade sliced its head clean off and it fell to the ground, sunlight glinting off its reddish scales as it gradually stopped twitching.

DRAGONS! FUCK YEAH! I wasn't lying when I said I like starting in the middle of the action sometimes. You know what I also like? DRAGONS!

So there's my latest compilation. Nothing downright awful in here, unlike last time, so maybe I am getting slightly better at this. One can dream, anyway!

Summer!

I'm too lazy to look, but I'm pretty sure I make a post every year about how I usually don't get a lot of writing done during the summer. I am still plotting my next project, I'm getting The Edge of the Sphere ready for re-release by the end of August, and I'm also working on some website/marketing/behind-the-scenes stuff that is either boring or not ready to be unveiled yet. So, while I guess that all counts as being productive, I haven't written any new words since the short fanfic I finished at the beginning of the month.

We did make it up to Cape Cod last week, which turned out to be great. I was worried about how the trip would go, both due to the virus and my mom not being there, but overall, everything went well. One of my biggest concerns was stopping at the rest areas on the travel days, since it's too long of a trip to make without stopping at least once. I intentionally picked the smaller ones, though even the big ones looked less crowded than normal, and everything was fine. I wouldn't want to travel anywhere outside the northeast right now, but as our neighbor who lives up there full-time told us, everyone's pretty much been behaving themselves in our town. We usually ate the vast majority of our meals at the house anyway, and we're lucky enough to have a small private beach at the end of the street.

To be fair, our house isn't in one of the super-touristy areas, and we've decided not to do activities like mini golf and go karts. We did, however, drag the kids out hiking with us, and while there was some whining, they did well for the most part. We'll investigate some new trails next time we're up, especially since the ones we went on were not crowded AT ALL in the morning.

Yeah, I'm not stepping on those wooden planks again.

We could definitely tell there's fewer people around than is typical for this time of year, but hey, I'm not complaining. I know of at least three families who canceled their rentals up there because they're "restaurant people", which is fair. (Or, as one of them told me, she wasn't going to pay a lot of money to listen to her family whine about not being able to do anything they wanted for a week. You can get that at home for free!) I wouldn't say it's completely empty up there, but there's definitely a decrease in traffic.

The reviews for this trail said it looked like something out of The Hobbit. I wouldn't know firsthand, but sure!

I kept saying that we'd see how the first week went and then make our decisions for the rest of the summer. When I was stressed out up there last year, one of my coworkers/friends summed it up perfectly: when the kids are young, it's not a "vacation", it's a "family trip". This was probably the first time in a long time I was really sad to leave. The current plan is to go up again on Sunday, stay for two weeks, come home for a week, and then go up for one more. I'll be bringing my work equipment to work remotely if necessary, and if school is going to be mostly virtual, we might even stay a little longer.

No one else was here when we visited. NO ONE.

I might as well mention that I finally read two books last week I'd been meaning to get to for a while and liked them both, so that was another plus. There are quite a few ebooks on my to-read list that have no waiting list at my library at the moment, so I'm hoping I'll be equally lucky this trip. I also picked up my knitting project I'd abandoned around February in favor of the baby blanket, made a big mistake, but then managed to fix it without having to rip it out. Everything seems to be going so relatively well, maybe I should attempt to write a few words!

As always, I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy. Enjoy your summer as best you can, and be sure to take care of yourselves, too.

Drinks Are On Me

Unfortunately, I need to start with the sad news: my mother passed away last week. We knew from the beginning that her diagnosis/prognosis was among the worst you can get, but even her doctors were surprised this happened so quickly. Obviously, the global pandemic didn't help matters any, but we're trying to find some solace in knowing we all did the best we could with what we had, and I don't think anyone could have done anything differently at any point. We were lucky she was able to be moved to hospice for her last two weeks, and hospice care is everything people say it is. Despite all the difficulties of the situation, the staff there took care of all of us as best we can.

We're all devastated, of course, especially since there's not much else to do right now other than what we've been doing for the past weeks/months while stuck at home. It's hard, but I'm trying to find some positive, happy things wherever I can. (Even when it seems like an impossible task.) The next part of this post may seem like an advertisement, but 1) I promise it's not, and I am getting no compensation from it, and 2) literally everyone I've told about this has responded with, "Why didn't I know about this? I want one!" So here's my attempt to put some joy and fun back into the world right now.

When we were first at the beginning of the end with my mother, my Facebook ads were actually relevant for once, and I learned that Keurig, the company behind the single-serve coffee makers, has come out with an appliance that makes...wait for it...chilled cocktails. As a bonus, they were running a Mother's Day promo for $100 off. My mother and I loved online shopping, our Keurigs, and fun cocktails, and she would have loved the hell out of this. In different circumstances, I totally would have ordered two of them and given her one.

"Chilling." Like we've been doing anything else at home recently.

The alcohol is already in the pods. (And if you think FedEx actually cared about having someone 21+ sign for them when my pods were delivered, like they're supposed to...LULZ.) I was a little wary at the beginning, but I am here to tell you they are not skimping on the alcohol content here. At all. For what they are, I would say the pods are reasonably priced; more expensive than if you had all the ingredients at home already, but quite a bit cheaper than getting the same thing out at a bar.

The selection is pretty good! In addition to this peach sangria, I've also had a vodka lemonade, "lemon bubbly," and a Mai Tai. The other adult in this house had a strawberry margarita last night while half-assedly paying attention to a webinar for work that was even more of an advertisement than this post.

I actually had some issues setting everything up, which I won't bore you with here, but I will tell you that their customer service is excellent and I'm very happy with everything. Will this be as long-lasting as the coffee makers have been? Who knows. But with everything going on now, I just needed something that was fun and silly, and now that we're past the initial hurdles, I'm very happy with it. Regardless of what you're drinking "in these uncertain times" (take a shot!), have one for my mother and me. And as she was saying for the past couple weeks, make it a double for her.

Life Imitating Art

This past Saturday was my birthday. I'm now 34 years old, so pretty firmly into adulthood by now. It sounds stupid, but sometimes I forget that being a responsible independent adult has its perks. Like, I'll think, "Oh, I wish I could (do whatever thing)" and then remember hey, wait a minute, I can! A cool event is happening in the city? LET'S GO! A funky end table that my mother wouldn't approve of? IT'S IN MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW! Granted, having kids has prevented total spontaneity (and, um, dangerous home decor), but still. Way better than being a teenager.

So, my birthday. And doing things. When I wrote Seductive Suspect, which is about a murder mystery weekend gone wrong, I was pretty much making stuff up as I went along. I'd never actually done something like that, but I'd heard enough about such events that I figured I could cobble together something realistic. Or at least believable.

I wrote the book. Went through submission, editing, release, promo, blah blah blah. And continued to think, "boy, it sure would be fun to go to a murder mystery weekend."

It finally hit me. WHY NOT? I'm an adult!* I started doing my research, and long story short, Mr. Landen and I spent the weekend in the Victorian mansion that served as the inspiration for the Haunted Mansion in Disney World and participated in the murder mystery events. It was super fun, we had a blast, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who's interested in that sort of thing!

In comparing it to the setup for Seductive Suspect, there were similarities and differences. We were all assigned characters and were supposed to act them out at the scheduled times. (Though I don't think the drunk guy from New Jersey ever fully grasped that....) We got information sheets before each round with what's going to be revealed, what should stay secret, etc. None of us was the murder victim, and although one character was the murderer, he/she isn't told that. We all stayed on site, some meals were provided, and there was a full bar. (YES!)

As for the differences between my real-life experience and what my imagination concocted -  when I first saw that this was in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, I was imagining a secluded, creepy mansion. Nope. It's actually kind of a tourist-y little town, and the mansion is within walking distance to the main strip of shops and restaurants, plus some outdoor activities. I thought we'd have to be in character the whole time, but we actually had a good chunk of the day on Saturday to ourselves. (Mr. Landen and I browsed the shops, ate lunch, and went for a little hike in the woods.) All the clues came out during our discussions and roleplaying; no searching the mansion with a magnifying glass or anything physical like that, minus a little bit in the "murder" scene.

I got one of the biggest, most significant roles, so happy birthday to me. (Not the murderer, though!) The guy who runs the murder mystery part usually doesn't get the chance to spend a whole lot of time with the guests before having to assign parts, but he said that he's been doing it long enough that he gets a good read on people and usually does well. I would say for our group, he did a really good job and most of us fit our characters well. (Except for maybe drunk Jersey guy.) There were lots of laughs, fun in-character interactions, and we got to know each other a little bit outside of the mystery parts, especially during the special dinner on Saturday night. Mr. Landen had read some reviews online before we went, so he was forewarned that things get a little raunchy in the mystery story, but no one in our group seemed particularly offended. All in good fun!

Year 34 is off to a good start, and again, I highly recommend this place. If you go, tell Inspector Bob we say hello!

(*Yes, that link goes exactly where you think it does. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GROUND!!!)

Off to a Good Start...Or a Terrible Start...Okay, Some Kind of Start

I'm never one to pass up jumping on a good bandwagon. Writing/blogging buddies Krystal and Michelle recently made great posts about going back to their old writing projects and critiquing their opening lines. They were a ton of fun to read, and I also never shy away from self-deprecating humor, so I figured I'd have a go at it!

The vast majority of my early writings were Phantasy Star fanfic. Actually, those were the only stories I ever finished. I'll start as far back as I can find, and I'll also toss in some more recent ones, because why not? Some aren't too bad, some are, and there's one in particular that, due to a proofreading fail, is dumpster fire-levels of awful. Onwards!

***

My first fanfic ever. I think I was around 12 or 13 years old:

I see trees, I see sand, I see ice. And I see hell.

Okay, not too bad. Like lots of games and sci-fi in general, Phantasy Star made use of the Single-Biome Planet, hence the first line. I suppose my career as a writer didn't get off to a terrible start.

***

Another fanfic. I'm pretty sure I was 16:

The sun shone brightly over the sands of the desert. Because of the planet's irregular orbit around the sun, there was no actual night - daylight was a constant on in this barren world. The majority the population was in bed sleeping, having adjusted to the consistent sunlight long ago. But deep in the mountains, far from the sunlight, someone was awake.

First off, that's not how science works, Thea. Next year you'll take astronomy in high school and learn more about planets and orbits and such. (And then many years later, you'll enlist the help of a friend to teach you even more about orbits to set up the concept of a book.) Also, I'm so glad it's specified that the sun shone brightly, as opposed to all those dimly-shining suns.

***

Here it is, the laughably bad one I promised. Also fanfic. I think I was 17 or 18?

The light of the two moons cast a dim light over the small village. While the outside temperature was not unbearably hot, the villagers kept all their windows open to take advantage of the sporadic cool breeze.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHsdghoijasengeiwsdf. How did I not catch the two instances of "light" in the VERY FIRST LINE OF THE STORY?!?!?! And the kicker is, this was actually one of my best fanfics. It's held up over time. It's poignant and heartbreaking. It took a new spin on a topic that had been written about before. BUT OH MY GOD, THAT FIRST LINE.

In the immortal words of Blanche Devereaux, "God, I wish I was dead." Even 15ish years later.

***

At some point, a long writing break happened while I was off doing other life stuff. Let's see how I re-entered the writing world with one more fanfic example:

Alys shielded her eyes from the sun. In the distance, she could make out the silhouettes of the tents at the edge of the native Motavian village of Molcum. “Finally,” she muttered to herself as she approached the outskirts of the small village.

Maybe not the most attention-grabbiest thing ever, but it works. That was late 2010, and I'd say my style hasn't changed drastically since then (based off this example, anyway).

***

Now let's see what I actually got published. Here's the opening of Searching the Skies, my first published book (written in 2011):

Geneva Greyson removed one of her twin daggers from the throat of her enemy and watched him fall to the ground, wondering yet again what could have possibly possessed her people to land on this planet centuries ago. Ophari was a cold, desolate world with little to offer in the ways of food, minerals, or technology, as the Opharians were not nearly as advanced as the humans who had stumbled upon them. Had it been up to her, she would have passed over the near-barren rock without a second look. Her ancestors, however, had thought differently; they had sought to colonize it and add the small planet to their ever-growing empire.

Not too shabby. Definitely screams "this is sci-fi!" from the get go. Funnily enough, very little information in this opening paragraph is actually relevant to the rest of the book.

***

Elysium remains one of my favorites; let's see how it holds up under the magnifying glass (written in 2014):

Janie stood in my living room, one hand holding a bag of food from the local Chinese take-out place and the other planted firmly on her hip. She fixed me with a stern glare. “You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked."

Well, we learned a lot about Janie in a few lines. Too bad she's not a main character.

***

I might be getting too full of myself. Let's look at Flight of the Dragon Queen (written in 2014-2015):

“Hey, Caleb. How’s it going?”
I glanced toward the entrance of the cubicle. Ricky, my closest acquaintance at the office, leaned against the edge of the flimsy wall. “Hey,” I greeted him in return. “I’m all right, can’t complain."

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE. It's a good thing this book has dragons and magic and shit, because something has to make up for this opening. If I recall correctly, even the editor had some qualms about the whole prologue, but sometimes you just need to quickly establish the parameters of the story and then get to the good stuff.

***

Might as well end on a high note with Out of Orbit (written mostly in 2015):

“Captain Hale, are you okay?”
Jasmine winced as she scrambled to her feet, trying to ignore the pain radiating from where her back had slammed into the floor. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” A quick glance around the spaceship’s deck indicated she hadn’t been the only one knocked off balance by the blast. Concern flitted through her mind, but tending to injuries wasn’t her responsibility or priority. “Keep firing!”

This is one of the few times I was really happy with an entire introduction/first chapter. When discussing this post with another writing friend, I also realized that OoO is probably the only time when I really felt I wrote a good opening, ending to the main story, AND ending to the epilogue. Yay.

***

I just sent in another round of edits for Seductive Suspect. The whole opening chapter is quite long and a lot happens, but the first couple lines/paragraphs probably fall somewhere in the middle between awesome and Blanche Devereaux both in quality and level of excitement. I can live with that!

Setting the Pace

As promised, here are some spoiler-free thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda. The game's been out for almost a month and I'm not finished with it yet (how's that for pacing?), and I'm really not sure how much I have left to go. Based on the level requirements to unlock certain things, I think there's still a decent amount left, but I can't say for sure. That said, I've played enough of it to spout off some of my thoughts and how they relate to storytelling.

So far, I'm really enjoying the game. Some parts of it have been frustrating, but the good stuff more than makes up for it. While I do love Dragon Age: Inquisition, as we all know (the previous BioWare game), I wouldn't say the game was without its faults. MEA has improved on the elements I took issue with, which I appreciate.

As the title of this post indicates, I'm going to talk about pacing. That was my number one qualm with DAI, in that the pacing seemed really uneven and just...off. There are certain plot points you have to hit in order to progress the main plot, and in some cases, you can choose the order in which you do them, but the sheer number of side quests (many optional, to be fair) killed the sense of urgency for me. And what really bugged me was that the main plot quests were SO GOOD. Like, I distinctly recall staying up way too late while playing one of them because I HAD to know what happened next (a mark of good storytelling). I wish there had been more of that instead of Fetch Quest #2837.

To be fair, the structure of MEA isn't too dissimilar, but something about it flows better for me. Maybe it's because all the little side quests add up to a bigger whole, or contribute more to the overall story. It's funny, in DAI, the Big Bad is established relatively early on and you know your goal is to defeat him. In MEA, I'm pretty sure, though not positive, I know who the final boss is going to be, but the overall goal is just making a safe place for your people to live. You'd think that the game with the more defined goal would be the one with better pacing, but it's not working out that way for me.

Moving on! The other issue I had with DAI is that I thought there were way too many characters, and as such, not all of them felt as developed and well-written as they could have been. (For the record, I said the same exact thing about Mass Effect 2.) MEA pared down the number of companions and as a result, I don't feel like any of them are useless or redundant. Sure, there are some I like better than others, but even my least favorite has a detailed background and has had some good moments.

I'll stop here before this gets too long. I know you're all wondering about the romances, because obviously that's the main reason people play these games ( ;) ). I've chosen who I'm going to pursue the first time around, but the romance hasn't progressed super far, so I'll get back to you on that!

As Seen on TV (or Movies, I Suppose)

Whoopsies, a month went by without a post. I fell into another black hole of work at the day job, and only managed to climb back out about a week or so ago. Also, due to part of that, I managed to wind up on the local news. Again. At least this time I had a feeling it would happen and remembered to slap on some lip gloss before leaving the house. Anyhoo, that's all done with (for now), and I finally have time to write! Yay!

In the past, I've written about dream/fantasy casts, or if real-life people have influenced my description of characters, and so on. It's that time again, for Seductive Suspect. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, since the character list in this book is on the long side, but let's have some fun!

Veronica - I keep coming back to Sophia Bush to play our plucky heroine, but disclaimer: I haven't seen her act in very much. Honestly, I'd be hard pressed to name something I've seen her in besides the Law & Order: SVU crossovers with her Chicago show. That said, she's a pretty darn close match in terms of physical description, and any interviews and such I've read of hers suggest it wouldn't be a stretch to capture Veronica's personality, either.

Adam - Ooooh, I've been struggling a little with my male lead. Ashton Kutcher keeps popping up, but I'm not 100% convinced. I think he might be a hair too much on the, uh, goofy side? But then again, he's taken on more serious projects recently, and I think he also has the necessary charm. Josh Hartnett is a close runner-up here.

Victor - Here's where my influence is a bit obvious, if not obscure. Back in the day, there was an episode of Frasier where Frasier decided to hire a butler, who was played by Victor Garber. For whatever reason, that was in my head when creating my own butler character. That, plus the Alias connection for Reasons, makes this one easy. Next!

Laura - This time my subconscious thoughts took a little longer to resurface. Initially I'd been thinking of a young Christina Hendricks for the "sexy librarian" character. Not that Ms. Hendricks is ancient now, but you know. I was well into writing the book before I realized I'd probably been thinking of Laura Prepon the whole time. Oops. Hey, that five years makes a difference!

Isabel - Isabel is one of the more complex characters in the book, and as such, it's been a challenge thinking of someone who could accurately portray her many facets. For now, I think I'm going with Anna Kendrick, who usually plays cheerier characters, but she might have some fun with Isabel's darker side. Also, the physical description is spot on here, though unintentionally so, I swear.

Paul - For our good-natured guy who likes to have a good time, I'm going with Chris Pratt here. Preferably when he's on the blonder side. Paul has his more serious moments, too, but I don't think anything that would be outside the realm of ability.

Brittany - For fun, I'm picking Kate Upton, though her list of acting credentials is on the short side. For my fellow Clue fans, Brittany is basically a dumber version of Yvette. Yup.

I still have one more major-ish character and a few more minor ones to solidify in my head, but I need to get back to writing!

Things I Love This Summer

This post admittedly has little to do with writing, but I figure things that make me happy can lead to being in a good frame of mind to get some writing done. Also, all of these came to me as recommendations from other people, so I might as well pass them along!

"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" - I'd seen plenty of articles and posts on my Facebook feed about how everyone should be watching this show and how good it is...they do not lie. It's great. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the first season on Netflix (plenty of time before Season 2 starts in October!) and it is so much fun. The characters are flawed, yet likeable, and anything that randomly segues into a musical number a couple times per episode gets all the stars from me.

Instant Pot - This popular electric pressure cooker (with additional functions) has been in my possession for about a year now, but as more and more people buy one, more recipes come out for it. (Fun fact: this year on Prime Day, Amazon sold around 120K Instant Pots. That's a lot of pressure cookers.) Thanks to the IP, I've made a ton of great stuff without having to turn my oven on, like Greek-style pork, Asian-style orange beef, and pulled pork that was ready in less than two hours. I find the end results have a better texture than what I got with my slow cooker, and I love how you can do everything in the pot, from browning the meat with the Saute feature, to thickening the sauce after cooking. Also, it's a foolproof way to steam shellfish and make risotto without constant stirring!

Lilla Rose Flexi Clips - I have thick wavy/curly hair that doesn't always behave itself. I also have very little patience for hairstyles with a steep learning curve. These are easy to use AND they actually contain my hair with less than a minute's worth of effort. With the large size, I can quickly put my hair in a French twist or bun, clip it, and it does. not. move. for the rest of the day. No extra bobby pins or anything. It is some kind of sorcery. I started with three and eventually wound up buying six more (in various sizes for various purposes). I'm finding it difficult to go back to the plastic claws or the usual spring-loaded barrettes because these are so much better (and come in a ton of different styles, which is bad for my wallet).