Rants....can I?

How many of you start writing a novel, you just love EVERYTHING about it, and then..horrors, you lose interest?

Maybe I should explain in more detail?

I started Philestia with only pure love in my heart. I realized it had flaws, and I didn't expect it to do for me what The Hunger Games did for Suzanne Collins. But I adore everything about it.

But, as in every relationship, you will have that wee wedge that starts tearing you apart. You can either toss the wedge out of your life, or leave for the wedge. But what if you don't realize the wedge IS a wedge? As in my case, what if it started at first as a innocent, helpless, struggling plot idea? Just an idea, mind you!

Ah, but even Great tigers start small.

Masqueraders. It was just a rough, course idea. Mutants who didn't Want to be mutants, and a super cool cat woman. That was it! Just that!

That little idea was the starting wedge.

The next problem came dressed in deerstalker cap, Victorian gowns, and a bad guy named Moriarty. My 'Miss Holmes' idea. At this point it was just a 'what-if'. A small conversation with my dearest friend about Sherlock Holmes brought up the idea of a Holmes sister. Little did I know it would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I shamefully tell you, I haven't even thought about Philestia in a whole week. What do I do? I've ditched too many novels. I don't know how I could ever actually finish and publish a novel if I keep this up. Should I just lay Philestia aside until my obsession with Masqueraders and Miss Holmes cools? Or should I push my other ideas aside, and consent are solely on Philestia? But, I don't know if I can do that either. I'd feel trapped writing just one novel.

Darn it, being a writer is harder the it looks.

I was going my happy, merry way..

WHEN I REALIZED! It's Tuesday. My Day to post.

I'm honestly a forgetful girly.

Anyway, I ACTUALLY have a lot to say about writing...Maybe not in Character Development (I don't think that is current...or am I wrong?), but in writing stuff.

I'll just start off with Masqueraders.

I just LOVE this banner I made for it...

Have you ever seen a book, heard about a book, or read a book, and fallen head over heels in want for it? Thought, "Oh my Goshbubbles, THAT is a good book!"?  Thats the way I am feeling.  Only, I'm WRITING the book.  This is a really great feeling.  It is something I have never really felt before.  I get all excited just thinking about it.    Despite the name, this book has NOTHING to do with a masquerade ball.  But, rather Mutant.  But, they call themselves the Masqueraders.  I have to throw my mask love into everything, now mustn't I? 

I'm just going to say, I can hardly wait to start writing this novel.  I'm at the almost there point.  A few more plot tweaks, character bios (I wrote a rough one, and even though I already know every character like the back of my hand, I want to concrete it by writing it down), and then I'll be ready to race off.

For once, just being a writer has made me very happy.

Oh, ETA:

What did y'all ever decide about the blog's background? Naturally, I'm not present at your meetings..(We should see if we could get skype...) but I might be able to help obtain a new (customized) background for Inkblots.

Writers: The Natural Enemy of Trees.

Sometimes I think there should be a sort of writer's guild or writer's union that helps you get through things. I guess, a little bit at least, that's what Inkblots is. But in my idea of a writer's union writers would be compensated for printer ink and paper.

There is nothing as terrible as printing off a eighty thousand some word novel. I didn't count this time, because I was terrified of the number, but my last novel was about three hundred pages and I know this one was significantly longer. I'm guessing it's about four hundred and fifty pages long. It took me at least two hours to print off. I write novels, but I always find myself printing off phonebooks.

The printing off process on my latest novel wasn't nearly that bad. Mostly because my siblings were watching television behind me and I was half heartedly watching that. It surprised me that the printing off didn't irk me as much as it usually does. To be perfectly honest, my new novel, In Transit, offers nothing but surprises. 

I was surprised I first got the idea, which happened about a week after I shipped my old book off to friends and promised not to write anything new for a while. The outlining process surprised me because it was much filed with gaps when my usual outlining was meticulous. When I started writing, it surprised me also has I, a writer with very written out paths for my writing, was really just winging it. Sure enough, reading it for the first time surprised me as well.

Usually, my first reading of me work surprises me. It's an expected surprise, if there is such a thing. I anticipate hating my work, but then I always end up loving it. It's happened with everything I've ever written. 

After putting whatever I've written away long enough to forget what I was thinking when I wrote it, I end up loving it. For In Transit, the same happened again. The surprise there was the same though. I'm always surprised what I've written is good, or at least what I deem good. And I'm always surprised at the way it turned out, which is usually hugely different from what I pictured it turning out as. 

I blame this on my characters. 

Writer's like to blame things on their characters. Much like children blame accidents on their imaginary friends. Fictional characters I create are of course not real. I often forget this, which is insipidly stupid of me. But they are not real. Not at all in fact. They are slaves, I create them, and then I make their lives terrible and write their reactions, but they are not real. 

How though, if they are not real, do they turn out so differently from what I seemingly thought they would turn out as? 

My answer to this is that I wrote them like this. I don't know how, but I'm sure that I probably did it. 

After three novels it still amazes me. It amazes me that my character is so amazingly strong when, while I always pictured her a strong, I never remember writing her as so unrelenting in the face of opposition. I was blown away by my character's strength. And I was blown away by her family's warmth, and her extended family's zeal. I was blown away by the intimidating atmosphere I put my character into, even though I exactly planned it to be like that.   

I'm still blown away by the fact that I wrote all these pages too. The very fact that I have the ability to write novels is still crazy to me, but it's also common place. Yes, I've accepted, that is my defintion: writer, tree killer, stringer of words, creator of characters. But when I think about it, it's just insane that I do this for fun. And that I exceed at surprising my own self with my writing. 

I'm not sure what brings the most surprise: The fact my heroine doesn't break under everything I throw at her, the fact I get worried about her when I know what happens, the fact the plot twists make me gasp,  the fact I'm gasping at something I wrote, or the fact that I wrote it. Whatever it is, I'm sure my new novel is good because it surprises me. And that's all I ever want out of my writing. 

PS What do you guys want out of your writing? Do you read your own books differently than you read other people's books? Do you hate printers too? Do you think I should plant a tree to cover up my guilt? Do you want to read my book? Do you think a union should cover the cost of printer ink? Do you leave your book alone? Do you like all these questions?