A to Z Challenge: H is for Heartbreak

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

H is for Heartbreak

Ah, heartbreak: that terribly awfully perfect piece of a love story. Most of us love happy endings, but if we're honest, we also love to see some heartbreak before our heroes and heroines get what they want. After all, happiness is all the more precious when it's hard-won, and to set aside humor for a moment, we all know what it's like to suffer, and feel like we won't survive it. It's part of being human, that awful grief - as is the rush of light when we come out on the other side, and find that somehow, miraculously, we're still alive. But I already wrote about that in Cloudland.

In this novel, I get the delicious fun of adding heartbreak into six different stories, and of subjecting my two souls to a variety of different forms of heartbreak. I mentioned this at length in an earlier post, but I'm planning on using quite a few of the love story plots at my disposal.

So I'll have heartbreak because someone isn't loved; heartbreak because someone is and the love isn't reciprocated; heartbreak because love is forbidden; heartbreak at being rejected, not once, not twice, but three times, by the same person; heartbreak at once-perfect love being destroyed; and quite a bit more.

I'm not just being sadistic, here, although that is fun. I'm trying to build a story arc through six different lifetimes - which means, really, that things can't work out perfectly until the last story. What a pity, right? ;)

A to Z Challenge: G is for Gods

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

G is for Gods

I'm going to tell a very, very brief story (no, really, all evidence to the contrary, I promise it'll be short): Once upon a time, I set out to write a magical realism novel, and instead, I wrote Cloudland. Which has some magic in it, yes, but really isn't magical realism at all.

See? SUPER short story. I'm getting better at this brevity thing. Anyway, when I started my current WIP, I thought, "OK, this time I'm really doing magical realism." And as soon as I thought that, I decided that meant that I could have gods as characters. Readers of this blog won't be too surprised by that; I already mentioned both god characters I'll have in previous A to Z posts.

Why? Well, the better question is, why the heck not? This is magical realism: I get to play with reality! I get to have these incredibly powerful beings waltz around Earth, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, and generally acting like normal human beings who just happen to also be (almost) omnipotent and (nearly) immortal. Oh yes, and incredibly gorgeous.

Now what isn't fun about that?! The only small issue was that I wanted to have each soul reincarnate as a god in one lifetime...which meant that the gods also had to die. Hence the parenthetical modifiers in the previous paragraph. This bothered me for a little while, until I remembered that I'm the writer, and I get to make up the rules. So, in my world, gods can die. It's not easy to kill them, and they won't ever age or die of a disease, but they can (and will) die.

I really love being the writer sometimes...

A to Z Challenge: F is for Free Spirit

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

F is for Free Spirit

No, I'm not selling jeans (more's the pity, too. I always wanted to be cool enough to be in the fashion industry); I'm creating Uber Characters.

Don't look that up; I coined the term. At least, I think I did, just now, as I was writing this. You see, as I've mentioned (yes, I know, ad nauseam, but there are NEW visitors here thanks to A to Z!) my WIP involves following two souls through six or more lifetimes. While that means that each soul will have a new name, history, appearance, and even personality in each lifetime - i.e. the normal characters I need to create - there also needs to be some core identity, some essential piece of each soul that is the same in every life. My hope is that the reader will be able to say, "Oh, I bet this girl is the Damon character from that Greek story," or something like that, anyway. To put it simply, each soul should is some important way be recognizable as itself.

This of course leads to some very metaphysical questions - "What is the essential piece of a soul?" being just one of the many totally unanswerable ones - so I decided to deal with this the best way I knew how: by making each soul a sort of umbrella character for every mortal person in every lifetime it has. You know, as in an Uber Character. One of the first things I did when I started working on this novel was to create character analyses for both souls, complete with detailed psychological profiles.

So this is Uber Character #1: fiercely independent, suspicious of rules and authority of all kinds, and a bit wild - although that wildness can take some very different, and unexpected, forms.

This is the soul I call the Free Spirit. What is the other soul, Uber Character #2? Well, it'll appear somewhere during the A to Z Challenge...but I'm not telling which letter, because it's way more fun that way. Any guesses?

A to Z Challenge: E is for Emma

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

E is for Emma 

...well, maybe.

I know, that's a weird way to start a post, but since this book is in-progress, there are a bunch of decisions that I'm still working out. In this case, I haven't decided if I want this character to be Emma, in which case she'd be the daughter of a British Civil Service official, living with her family in India around 1890; or if I want her to be Padma, in which case she'd be an Indian-American corporate lawyer living in New York City in the very near future, around 2050. I do know that the other soul, no matter when this takes place, is going to be an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga. That will be the fun part :)

These are the problems you encounter when you're writing a book about the different lifetimes of two souls - too many damn possibilities.

Really, though, I haven't been thinking about this in terms of characters: I've been trying to figure out if I'd rather tackle researching the British rule of India in the 1890s, and deal with all of the subsequent racial tensions and cultural questions and historical accuracy problems, or if I'd rather tackle writing science fiction. See, if the Emma (we'll call her that for now) character lives in NYC in the near future, then I'll be forced to bump another lifetime further into the future.

Every sci-fi writer reading this right now is probably thinking, "SO?! Why the heck wouldn't you do that??" The answer, alas, is that while I read science fiction, I've never written it. Not even a little short story here or there. And...the science part scares the you-know-what outta me. So this one is still up in the air for now.

A to Z Challenge: D is for Damon

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

D is for Damon 

Damon is the second soul, or character, in my Ancient Greek lifetime, and he also happens to be Apollo's love interest (and for those who are curious, homosexual male relationships - usually between an older and a younger man - were actually very common in Ancient Greece; Apollo himself had a large number of male lovers.)

Damon isn't the sort of guy you'd expect a god - much less the god of music, medicine, truth, and light, among other things - to fall in love with: he's a shepherd, living in near-isolation for most of  the year with his father in a tiny hut on a remote mountain, and he spends his days tending their flock of sheep. As a result, he's poor, uneducated, and naive...but he's also determined. Add that to the beauty he grows into as he reaches the edges of manhood, and you have an excellent recipe for disrupting Apollo's self-imposed celibacy.

Here's a little snippet about Damon:

Damon was only seven years old, a dark-eyed slip of a boy with knees like bruised fruit, and hollow cheeks only a mother could love, when he decided he would one day become Apollo’s favorite consort. The fact that he had no mother to love the confusion of limbs and scrapes that were his mortal frame did not deter him; nor did the fact that the god had foresworn all mortal lovers since the untimely deaths of his most recent seventeen in a row, the last of which had died in the god’s arms, cross-eyed and bloodied, after being struck in the head by a rebounding discus. As a result of this unfortunate series of violent and sudden losses, Apollo was so consumed by grief that not even the most smooth-skinned, well-endowed lads and maidens of the realm could shift his resolved celibacy. Damon, however, was a determined child; he’d found very early on in his quiet life that achieving a goal was simply a matter of doing it. 

He lived with his father in a tiny cottage, barely more than a hut, on an isolated hilltop hours outside the nearest village, tending his father’s sheep and dreaming of the gods who lived high on the remote, misted blue peak that loomed at the very edge of his vision...

A to Z Challenge: C is for Come Back

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

C is for Come Back

I'm diverging a little from my A to Z Challenge theme today (and I write this blog, so I get to do fun cheat-y stuff like that), and using the letter 'C' to welcome the fabulous Melissa Maygrove to my blog! Her debut novel, Come Back (how perfect that it started with letter 'C'??), is going to be published on May 12th. So, in honor of all of the cover-reveal and promotional activities this week, instead of talking about my process, I invited her here to ask her some questions about her own process of writing her novel.

Here are her answers, and they're so honest, courageous, and inspiring, that I'm honored to be able to post them. Welcome, Melissa!

1. What was the most difficult scene to write, craft wise?
That would be the confrontation with the villain, hands down. Minor details often work themselves out when I actually write a scene, but good grief. This hair-puller not only eluded me during plotting, it remained a nebulous blob until I was more than half way through the book!

Some earlier aspects of the plot had to take shape first before I knew what would happen, but other things complicated it, too.

I had to work within the laws and customs of the times and still make the villain’s fate satisfying to the reader. Also, quite a few minor characters make an appearance for only this scene. Giving the reader enough information to visualize them without bogging the story down was tough, as was being careful not to neglect the main characters’ actions and reactions. It was a lot of plates to keep spinning.

2. What was the most difficult scene to write emotionally?
Many scenes made me reach for a tissue (still do), but the ones dealing with suicidal ideation often affected my mood for days.

It’s not something I talk about much, but I went through a period of serious depression in my early twenties. I was so far gone, I was actually contemplating methods of killing myself. Thankfully, a good friend intervened and talked me into getting counseling.

Let me pause here to say, if you know someone who’s depressed, be that friend.

Rebecca, the heroine in Come Back, was very depressed after being abandoned in the wilderness. At times I had to mentally take myself back to that low time of my life in an effort to write her character authentically. It wasn’t easy, but I think it made for a better story.

3. Describe each of the leads in 5 words. Go!
Heroine: Deserted, depressed, self-sufficient, stubborn, loyal
Hero: Handsome, hardy, honorable, human, haunted

Thanks for hosting me today, Liz. I love your blog, and I’m honored you invited me here.

It was my pleasure! And now for a little taste of Come Back....

Come Back, by Melissa Maygrove
Sometimes a single choice alters the course of a person's life forever.

Left behind by everyone she loves...

Rebecca Garvey had the promise of a California future dreams are made of, until the wagon train her family was traveling with left her behind. Now she’s slowly dying in the wilderness, abandoned and stripped of her self-worth. Once the shock of her desertion turns to embittered despair, she doesn’t want to be found. Then a handsome stranger challenges her convictions and changes her mind.

Headed for Texas, chased by the demons of his past...

Seth Emerson knows exactly what he wants. Working to save for a cattle ranch of his own keeps him busy and keeps his pain buried. Rescuing a stubborn woman from the hills of New Mexico Territory isn’t part of his plan—but she’s exactly what he needs.

Making greater sacrifices than either of them could foresee...


Seth and Rebecca set off on a risky journey and a quest for truth, each healing the other’s love-starved soul along the way. Will they give in to their growing attraction?  Or will they honor their commitments when Seth returns Rebecca to civilization... and her betrothed?


About Melissa:

Native Texan Melissa Maygrove is a wife, mother, nurse, freelance editor, and romance writer. When she's not busy caring for her tiny nursery patients or shuttling teenagers back and forth to after-school activities, she's hunched over her laptop, complicating the lives of her imaginary friends and playing matchmaker. Melissa loves books with unpretentious characters and unforgettable romance, and she strives to create those same kinds of stories for her readers.

www.melissamaygrove.com

Blog: www.melissamaygrove.blogspot.com

Twitter @MelissaMaygrove: https://twitter.com/MelissaMaygrove

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaMaygrove?ref=hl

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106752837827430594401/posts

Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8103285.Melissa_Maygrove

A to Z Challenge: B is for Bike

This year, I'm participating in the insane awesome A to Z blogging challenge, which entails posting EVERY SINGLE DAY during the month of April, except for Sundays. Each day's theme corresponds to a different day of the alphabet: 26 days, 26 posts. I'll be blogging each day this month on some aspect of my current work in progress (WIP).

B is for Bike

Man, what a day! Not only is it Day Two of the A to Z Challenge, but it's also the first Wednesday of the month, which means that it's time for The Insecure Writers! (For those who don't remember, it's an online group created by Alex J. Cavanaugh for writers. You, too, can join us anytime!)

I have to admit, this post is gonna be a little more A-To-Z-Challenge-ish than Insecure-Writers-ish. I mean, the title of this post is "B is for Bike", so I kind of have to go with the A To Z theme. Y'know?

Which means that today is about bikes! No, not just any bike, but a bike bike. You know, one the requires a leather jacket and an attitude and a willingness to take risks, not to mention some seriously awesome boots. In other words, a motorcycle.

You see, one of the characters in my WIP - Natalie, or Nat for short - is something of a vagabond. Nat appears in the lifetime in Australia, in the 1960s, and she spends her days driving around the country on her motorcycle. Which would have looked like a dirtier and well, crappier, version of this (HT to http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1947-triumph-speed-twin.htm for the great picture):

That, my friends, is the Triumph Speed Twin, built around 1947. At this point, a true classic, but back in the late 50s, when Nat would have bought it (highly used and in bad shape, considering her very limited budget), it probably looked more like a pile of scrap metal than this gleaming beauty.

Want to know more about Nat's wandering life, and her bike? Come back on April 16th - you know, "N" day :)