The colder temperatures up North have crept in over the past few weeks and my body feels it every year. Weather changes equal the yuck. I curled up in my blankets but not to enjoy the start of the Holiday season. It’s because my body goes into denial every time we move into a new season. Sniffles, sore throat, and Vick’s Vapor rub on the chest and feet. Maybe my recent flu shot was a factor too.
Writing during the yuck isn’t easy but I feel I made some progress at the start of the month by finding the right opening after a battle between locations and ideas. Gradually bringing up the way characters first met, or old memories took everything that happened in that battle to find a clear way of connecting everything. The art of switching from a memory or flashback in the past without losing the reader, can be tricky. But done in the right amount of sentences and in the right place keeps a story flowing.
As I move forward in my chapter, I’m asking if and how my characters met before the opening scene. The good thing about the first chapter is that you don’t have to go too deep into detail. The point is to build at the right pace. I want lingering feelings from the past, but just whispers. Coincidences and timing that wasn’t right, until now. The next question is can I connect the elements together in a way that’s not choppy for the read?
Between the typing and pondering the next move for my characters, I have a new audio book playing in the background. I just purchased, A Shadow In the Ember by Jennifer L Armentrout. This other worldly fantasy has a fiesty female character who was secretly trained to be an assassin to save her kingdom. I’m just in the first few chapters but this novel has a better start than some other fantasies that I’ve read because the character isn’t an extreme assassin. The author pulls in her human side, a realistic side given what kind of life the character had. The spice had begun but not in the way I expected, and it wasn’t extreme either. I felt the smother but same words didn’t repeat over and over again.
Can you tell I’m taking notes as I listen? I’m noting transitions and the way the author creates steamy scenes that don’t have my mouth falling open in shock. There’s a smolder, an ember like the title. I might not get much sleep tonight because I want to finish the book.
Don’t worry, my novel is still in the works. I’m posting my page count in NaNoWriMo this weekend.
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~Yoon Ju
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