Taking A Little Break

Can't believe how long I've been doing this

HMLIS
Well, posting those snippets was perfectly nerve-wrecking ! I will say you all are mighty perceptive. I promise we will get to HMLIS very soon.

Chapter 10
Well, that was quite the cliffhanger ? Chapter 10 and this chapter are kind of odd in their length. I probably should have posted them together.

What happens in this chapter,with Alan being forced to join the Cartel, happens pretty early in Veritas. The reason I changed it to later was because in Veritas it didn't make sense for Rayne to ask Alan to join him. Alan had only gone on one job and it just ended badly. In this version I wanted Alan to have been with them a while and gone on a job that Rayne believes to have been successful.

Taking A Little Break
Don't worry, this may not be what you think. Let me start from the beginning....Erik and I's 2 year anniversary was last month and we went on a 10 day cruise to celebrate. We had a blast in the Bahamas, did all the anniversary lovey-dovey things (Erik's a secret romantic), but by time the last "on sea" weekend rolled around we we needed our literary fixes...and did some writing.

With beer in hand Erik faithfully wrote book 8 and 9 for his new series that came out last year, but because there was no interenet it was hard for me to get to my online files of my new serials. So, with Mai Tai(s) in  hand I did the only thing a girl can do....I was unoriginal again and T-DOSH'd (and a little T-DOEV'd)

Now, I was a bit tipsy. And how do I know that ? Because I T-DOSH'd Sundays. It was an experience and I am going to take the next few posts and post it. I'm only doing this because I T-DOSHED with information that only goes up to this chapter of VICE and I figured I should post in in "real time". So, we will be taking a small, small break to see this. Starting next post.

I'm just going to disclaim now. You may see a side of me that only maybe Erik and my younger sister have seen.

Chapter 11
It is short, I know. This is the end of the shorties...I think.

Alan is now a member of the cartel with a $100,000 debt to his name. As he recovers from his injuries he notices something strange about Luce....he's not very human
Chapter 11

Playlist
1-Breathe Me- 
2- Say Something-

A Little Bit of Everything

I may have stolen this image from LiLe

 More Picspirations Underneath !


PICSPIRATIONS
Since I did the last post, I've left a few out.

Rayne Washington, 41 (Same as last time)

Ivy Washington, 29 (A little more blonder, though)

El, 33 (He doesn't show up much, but he has a picspiration)

 

Pascal, 27

Audrina, 29

That's Daniel Dae Kim, Amy Adams, David Beckham, Hayden Christiansen and Meghan Ory respectively.

HMLIS Sneak Peak
So, the Vice chapter I'm going to post is SHORT. So, I've  decided to go ahead and share some snippets from HMLIS as requested. Now, something I don't think I've made clear is that HMLIS has two POVs. With that in mind, I'm going to share the first bit of dialouge from each POV.

POV 1

“Why didn’t they move you into the new building ?,” I ask.

“I asked to stay.” He replies proudly. “This place used to be a church back in the old days. I kind of like the spiritualness of it. It’s inspiring, you know ? Are you very spiritual ?”

 I’d been to church exactly six times in my life. Which also correlates with the number of funerals I’ve been to. Still, when I had been in those churches I got a feeling there was something there.

“I’m spiritual, I guess.” I say.

“That’s a good answer,” he says. “We all gotta believe in something.”

“I believe in a lot of things,” I think aloud

“That’s good,” he compliments me again.

After a beat I decide it is time.

POV 2 

My burgundy BMW Crossover is always out of place in this neighborhood and Philip gets annoyed when I drive it here because the neighbors always stare and  talk  shit about me when I leave. 

But it’s my fuck your car, so it’s doing it’s job.

I climb in the driver’s seat and face him, he stands between my dangling legs and pokes at my fuchsia Converses. I hate how sometimes it seems like we’ve run out of things to say.

He reaches in to the back pockets of his jeans and gives me his Dad’s credit card.

Well, that was nerve wrecking !

CHAPTER 10
It's short, but I had to break it up for pacing purposes.
Alan settles into life now that Sara has promised him a return home, but in a drug induced stupor Alan falls off the roof...
Chapter 10 

Playlist Here
-1- Fool of Me
-2- If I Run
-3- Stay Instrumental

Scavenger Hunt !

 Happy Holidays !

 
Chapter 8 / HMLIS

Well, I feel kind of silly for that last post. Since that post I've kind of hit a stride and I can see the end in the (distant) horizon. I'm working on Chapter 13 (which isn't the last chapter) and I hope I can edit it into submission and sense-making when we get there. With all that in mind I think I won't post HMLIS until I finish up with Vice. Hopefully this means I can get most of HMLIS ready to go.

So, chapter 8 is going to start this wierd trend for the next few chapters where they are written in "real time". In that, there aren't a lot of time skips or jumps. I'm not sure why this happened, but it's something I noticed.

Third Person
I'm going back to answering some of the questions from the forum. Someone asked if I ever thought of making Vice third person. The answer is no. Vice/Veritas has always been Alan's story that he needed to tell. However, I did strongly consider writing HMLIS in 3rd person. I rewrote an entire chapter that way and realized....this just isn't working.

I wish me and third person could get along...maybe if Vice ever gets a sequel (which it may/may not) I think it could be third person. The more I write Vice the more I realized how limited I am in the world because everything has to be seen, experienced or explained to Alan.

Sundays
Okay, so I'm going to write briefly about this. Someone asked my favorite part of this serial and I have to say it was writing an extremely sympathetic character. Haley is kind of uncorruptable and I liked that about him. Also, despite the obvious purely physical aspect of  some of their interactions, Haley and Maxwell love each other and they have this kind of forbidden love (prisoner, military officer). I  don't do a lot of love stories, so it was nice. In fact, the fact that they love each other does come up in En Moritas, but we will get there...one way or the other.

Chapter 9 / Scavenger Hunt
So, let's move on to the second half of what was once a 10,000 word chapter. So I put a couple of things in here, let's see if you can spot them.

1. There are TWO literary refernces. Both are 20th century American novels.
2. Minnie gets to use a trope

East and West are at war and a draft has been put into effect. Alan's been offered a chance to go home and he's willing to do whatever Sara says to get there. Even going out to buy her  two cases of wine.

CHAPTER 9
Playlist Here
-1-Stars by The XX ( this was in Blessed Hearts)
-2-Gorilla by Bruno Mars
-3-My Fault by Imagine Dragons

Hitting A Brick Wall / The Ugliest Map

Somebody Take Down These Walls

Okay, so the image and title may be a bit much. I'm suffering from a bout of writer's block, but nothing that is making me want to quit on my current serials. I know where I want to go with the stories, I have outlines; I just have no idea how to get them to come together. It's like pulling teeth with each chapter, but I am doing something. If I ever get to posting Chapter 11 of Vice (the one that is killing me right now) it will be a miracle.

As for HMLIS....it's going very slowly. I lost steam way sooner than I thought I would. I think one of the things I'm learning from LAE is I don't have to make each chapter 5-6,000 words long.

It's not the worse writer's block I've ever had but I wanted to be honest with what was going on. My worse one was during UL and at that time the purple chapters saved my sanity, but kind of threw my story off track.

Things Get Ugly
In lieu of last week's comments I put together a map. It's pretty crude, but here it goes. If anything I learned I do not know my states. One thing I learned from doing this is that you can see how The Republic is mostly desert and the East is all city.

 Those unnamed colors are cities I don't know the name of. The Yellow lines are the borders. So, I've never actually drew out where everything was, but it pretty much shakes out how I assumed. The Sprawl is mostly Vegas, Mojave is in the Mojave desert area and Fort Perch was always in coastal California...which I realize makes no sense in the context of the serial because if its so close to the shore they should be able to see the ocean, but um...moving on.


Moving On

This playlist is a go to for me because  I can use for HMLIS and Vice. Plus,  I can listen to it on loop without getting bored ! It only has two songs on it and it brings back a classic song from the UL/SA days.

Previously...
Sara leaves her hit still alive and before anyone can answer questions they learn there city is under attack. Sara only wants to know one thing; Where is her son ?

Chapter 8
Playlist Here  

What I've Been Up To

The Life of A Pantser

In The Trenches

Well, okay maybe not so much in the trenches. I got a case of writers block pretty bad and have been editing the same two chapters of Vice and HMLIS for the past few weeks. I need Lile's super powers so I can skip around, but they seem to fail me.

However, I figure a good cure for writer's block is to just write something and I've done enough of that lately that I feel like I can go back to posting.


Word Count
In my throws of writer's block I was going to make a post with all my word counts and I found a site that will count the words if I just copy and paste them in, so I don't have to search for Word docs. I started this because I think HMLIS will be short like BH was supposed to be and  I wanted to see BH exact length. I will probably do the longer serials later, but for now I did the shorties
.
Blessed Hearts
Words: 35100

Mimic
Words: 20220

Teenage Dream
Words: 900

Oh, by the by
 Nobody get excited, I'm juggling so much stuff right now that I'm already behind on....but I did a re-read of OHG and I kind of had this idea for a UL Thanksgiving story that could also function as a Christmas story, so I MAY do a thing. Maybe. Soon. Soon-ish.

HMLIS
I finally have it all plotted out to a point (life of a pantser) so I'm sure I will put some of it up soon. I just don't know if I should do it before or after Vice. We will see. My characters finally have names, which makes this process A LOT easier.

Vice Chapter 7
So, this chapter is where things REALLY get different. From this point on, it's a fairly new kind of story. Now, Chapter 8 (which will be in the next post) is well over 9,000 words so I'm debating between splitting it up or not right. I'm really not  sure how it got that long and there really is no logical split, but I'll see. Also, I'm still messing with the fonts, I didn't realize Ch. 6's was so big. Anyway, let's move on:

They think they have their target, Morrissey, cornered in a hotel room but before Sara can take her hit, he jumps out of the window. On Sara's orders Alan goes to get Mr. Morrissey's  car he stole earlier that night to follow him.... (I just realized how thriller-novel that sounded)
Chapter 7

-1- London Bridge by Yelawolf feat. Ed Sheerhan
-2- Sand by Karen Whipple
-3- Radioactive by Boyce Avenue (they were bound to come back)