A wasted morning

...and a comment on writing dialogue.

March break is over, hubby is off to work and the kids at school. I can sit for a length of time with out my ribs throbbing in pain, and today is my day off. Armed with my cuppa of organic earl gray, I flip on the computer with the mindset of getting a smidgen of research done. Since my Hero is Welsh I needed to listen some speech in hopes of absorbing the patterns.

It was not that easy. I just got more and more particular about what I was looking for. Originally I thought to find a Welsh radio station and have that play in the background as I wrote.

But then what about dialects, shit didn't think of that so it has to be a station in Southern Wales.

Oh hell can't be Welsh speaking because I won't know what they are saying and I'll be too distracted....

Then there was the searched for common slang, but how common? and to what age groups would these be appropriate? Oh swearing! Must look up swearing....but again this is in Welsh I need English translations..... Oh what a vicious circle I wove for myself.

The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became at making his speech authentic....not that I have a clue what he was saying because so far I haven't written a bloody word!

I don't want the dialogue to come across like Kevin Costner's English accent in that Robin Hood movie. Fading in and out depending on the daily mood and generally being awful. What would be worse would be odd phrases/slang stuck in there to make it sound authentic but all it does is pull the reader out of the story.

To make matters worse my secondary character is Irish. I suspect I'll put myself through all this again when I start surfing the Gaelic sites looking to tweak his dialogue.


Mae hi wedi cachi arna i


(lit. it's shit on me = I'm buggered/I'm for the chop)

Bad Blogger

I know I haven't been all the interesting this month. Still typing away and dealing with my penchant for procrastination. (say that five time fast LOL)

Still working away, today the hero announced that he hated his name. *sigh* So there went a few hours of constructive work while I played the name game. I find my characters do that a lot. What ever name I give them in the beginning once I start to realize their characters...they need a new name.

For some I guess they start writing with their characters in mind. Me I have to write and write and write some more to get to know them. Then I have to go back and rewrite much of my previous work. Hopefully it will all work out in the end I will have more solid characters.

Either that or my personality is splitting more then I originally thought.

click click click click......

or should it be tap tap tap tap tap?

Either way I'm still working on it. Sat in Starbucks today, waiting for Chapters to open, and worked on some more plot lines. In my head I know what the conflicts are but I needed to see them written down.

I remember reading that Jennifer Crusie uses a large white board when she is working on a story. To keep track of plot points and the flow and conflict building and stuff like that. I'm understanding the mentality with that. Keeping things rolling around in my head is good but sometimes it helps to see it all spelled out in front of me. That way I can see if I have missed something.

Like needing to be meaner to my characters....Poor Liam. He's only a secondary one, I'm afraid of what else I will do to the main ones.

Write...write...write

Gave myself a mulligan yesterday. Got hurt at work and the searing ache in my ribs distracted me from the singular thought I have obsessed over so far this month.

Today I am going to have one of my characters suffer from a possibly cracked rib because I now have first hand experience how that feels.

Negative to positive... Nothing in life happens that I won't use in my writing LOL

Here we go again.....

Yes, 70 days of Sweat began again on the 1st.
850-1500 words a day for 70 days. I'm number 165 out of 233 on the list. *G*

So far so good. I am not behind! WooHoo LOL As soon as I am done here I'm going to get my words done the day. That way if I have time to write tonight, it will be gravy. I'd much rather gravy then catch up..... get it?

Currently I am going to work on my Celtic treasures project. It's a paranormal/fantasy romance, with lots of smut of course. I already have 30,000 words done on it so if all goes well the first draft will be done before the summer. This one I have in mind for Berkley Sensation. We'll see how it turns out.
I'm also going to work on BiS, but it's hard to track 1000 words when you are doing edits, unless you rewrite an entire scene.

I'd love to write a shapeshifter book, there are some ideas percalating int eh back of my brain as well. I slipped a were character into my currents works so we'll see if I can work him into the story better so he can stay.

Good Luck everyone! Keep writing!!