“What color are Scotty’s eyes?”

“Did we ever mention where Graeme and Peter went to school?”

“How old is Carver again?”

When you write series, these are the kinds of questions you ask all the damn time.  It’s easy enough to keep track of the details through one book, but by the time you get to the fourth (or seventh!), it’s a lot harder.  Did you actually mention a detail or not?  And if so, where and in which book?  It’s just not always easy to flip back through all those manuscripts trying to find one little detail that might actually never have been referenced there, but might instead be in a side piece you wrote or some napkin scribblings in a restaurant somewhere.

We’ve tried to deal with this by creating a series bible.  For those of you not familiar with the term, a series bible comes from television series production and refers to a mythical tome that the series writers use to keep track of all the little details that develop over time in the shows they write.  I say mythical because several writers I have heard speak have said they didn’t actually have a physical document that kept track of these things.  Which seems foolish.  Wouldn’t that make things easier?

But just because they don’t doesn’t mean we can’t.  Emery is the master of what we call productive procrastination, basically doing something that is writing-driven but isn’t actually writing.  The series bible has been one of those projects.  For the longest time, this was in the shape of an Excel spreadsheet, sorted by character name, book and series and with the various details plugged in.  But again, that gets unwieldy after a certain size, and with 23 projects started, completed or abandoned, that’s a lot of characters to keep track of.

This week she hit on the brilliant idea of creating a wiki for our books.  I’m thrilled with this idea, as not only will it be easy to search, but it will also be easy to crosslink to relevant people, places and objects that are significant to each of them.  It’s going to take a lot of time to set up, but once it’s done, I think it will be a great tool for our writing.

And we’ll be able to stop arguing about how big the age gap is between Carver and David.  Finally.

Emery’s first piece of wisdom for the day:  Smoothies, however tasty, are a BAD idea when one works in an icebox.  Not a literal icebox, mind, but I have yet to work in an office anywhere that doesn’t go subzero in the summers.  Winters aren’t so hot either, ha ha.  Smoothies bad, sweaters good.

Auntie Emery’s second treat for you:  http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/2010/06/08/manifesto/.  Pretty much sums up my feelings on promotion and sums it up far more eloquently than my rambly style allows for.  If there’s one thing Grey and I butt heads over more than my pantsing vs. her plotting, it’s promotion.  I dig my heels in like nobody’s business.  Now, before you get the wrong idea, she’s not exactly gung ho about the marketing aspect either, but she’s willing to give it a go, whereas I’m all NONONONONONO!!!!  Yes, I understand that you have to get your name out there or no one’s going to buy your book, but it just makes me feel, well, dirty.  Discussion groups and forums strike me as too self-serving and too incestuous to do what they’re purported to do.  If I want to talk about myself, I have a blog—okay, two and a half.  Awards submissions are a waste of money and pointless anxiety.  And book signings…okay, I like book signings, mainly for the chance to chat with other authors and the odd person who takes an interest in something I wrote.  I like conventions for that same reasons, though book signings are a bit more budget friendly.

And in writing news:  Grey and I are still moving forward with our fourth Creatures book.  Though it’s a bit slow in writing with figuring out the plotty bits, but forward is forward.  And when your solo stuff is *crickets* you’ll take whatever the muse gives you.

Emery and I have been reading some interesting discussions about misogyny in M/M fiction this week.  Some of it is as blatant as the horrible bitch ex-wife/boss/whatever, but some of it’s more subtle and yet more pernicious, following the idea that the woman in question actually deserves “better” than the man involved, and so moves on and out of the story, leaving a clear field for a men-only story.  This rightfully got us thinking about our own stories, and the women in them.

We like women.  Probably a good thing, since we both happen to be female.  But we like writing them as well, enjoy creating strong, believable yet imperfect female characters to play off the men.  We are comfortable with the fact that not all male/female relationships are inherently sexual.  Yes, Virginia, it is possible for men and women to “just be friends”, even straight men and women.  That’s why Scotty exists, because Carver needed a sounding board and an awesomesauce chick with a brain seemed like the perfect foil for him. 

And gay men and straight women flirt.  It happens.  Really.  I’m fortunate enough to be friends with a number of gay men as part of a larger, tight knit, mixed sexuality community.  None of the guys are insecure about their sexuality, all of them are out and open, and many of them I would put up to my own sons as role models.  And some of them flirt outrageously.  With the women in the community.  Women they aren’t interested in sleeping with and who aren’t interested in sleeping with them, but who nevertheless flirt right back.  Flirting and fucking aren’t the same thing.  And so you get Alexandra, a character we got a bit of grief over but who we adore.  She’s strong, she’s playful and she and Carver have an odd rapport that includes a bit of sexual teasing.  Carver’s not sexually attracted to her, and Alexandra isn’t looking for more.  They’re just playing, and it’s safe.  The presence of a female character who is actually sexual is not a threat to the M/M story line.

The world most of our characters inhabit are equal parts male and female.  The idea that you could write a M/M story and not have a female presence is alien to us.  We understand that our readers are looking for the same sex interactions, but sometimes it’s hard to write to those expectations.  Scotty is a prime example of this.  Here is a smart, sassy, sexy lady with a great boyfriend and an inappropriate attraction for her female partner.  But we can never play with that relationship, because the readers of the Creatures of Sin series aren’t looking for F/F or F/F/M stories.  (To be fair, we’ve also wanted to hook Miranda up with Alexandra, but again with the F/F issue.)  We’re professional writers, so will we or nil we, we do take our readers’ preferences into consideration.  But there will always be strong women in all our stories.  Because there are so many strong women in the world.

The week before long/holiday weekends always drag.  Everyone slips into vacation mode and no one wants to work.  But five o’clock will roll around eventually and then it’s three days of blissful nothing.  Save my cat waking me up at an obscene hour to be fed.

In the writing arena, Grey and I submitted the third Creatures book and are forging ahead at a fairly good pace on the fourth Creatures book.  Even better the plot may have found us instead of vise versa.  It’s always nice when it works out like that.

Solo-wise, we’re both still in holding patterns.  I started picking at my second Landa book, but that petered out.  At least I think I finally figured out what’s wrong with my languishing, frequently restarted WIPs—no First Plot Point.  Completely new concept (to me) that I happened across in my blog feeds.  Essentially it’s that little something something that kicks everything into motion.  My published books have easily identifiable FPPs, and their languishing sequels don’t.  In other words, it’s a new means of productive procrastination.

As for this weekend, Grey might be taking her kids to the Shore, and I’m taking it easy with my cat and enjoying the quiet of Philly on a summery long weekend.

WE’RE WRITING!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dam has burst and the words are flowing like… Well, okay, no. The dam has cracked and we’re getting words on page for the next Creatures of Sin book. It’s not going quickly, although we did get two and a half chapters done this week, and I foresee a plot roadblock looming in the future, but our rule of thumb is to just write until we can’t and then beat on it until we can again. The important thing was *starting*. Which is true of anything, really. Until you start, you can’t know what the challenges are going to be, what needs to be surmounted, what new discoveries you’ll make. When I was learning to drive school bus, we were taught that you can’t steer unless you’re moving. I think that’s true of writing, too. So now we’re moving. No more whining about not writing! At least for a little while…

In the meantime, we’ve got the third CoS book ready to send off to Amber Quill (if I ever get around to working on the blurbs for it) and there’s a short story in our queue vegetating before we submit that as well. So it’s not all grim. And Emery has new body art and I’m going strawberry picking this weekend. Lots of opportunities for inspiration!

No new writing yet, but Grey and I have been brainstorming on our next Creatures book while polishing up the third book to send off to Amber Quill.  That’s progress, right?  We’re also trying to resurrect one of our languishing WIPs; unfortunately, works been a bear this week and sort of put a damper on that, at least from my end.

I can’t say I haven’t been writing.  Between the end of last week and the first part of this week I did a couple thousand words…on fanfiction.  I’m actually more than pleased with the results, and it was the first time in awhile that I got that good writing buzz.  I’ve missed that immensely.  It would have been nice if it were on one of my original WIPs, but writing is writing and when it feels so damned good it doesn’t matter to me what form it takes.  Do I feel a bit guilty for neglecting my own characters?  Of course.  Then again, not really.  Have I mentioned how good I felt after?  I’m talking word flying across the page with that kind of magic that only hits so often and leaves you in desperate need a of cigarette after, whether you smoke or not.  Like my solo blog says, good writing gets me off.

Other than that, Grey is turning into quite the gardening pro and has taken up spinning in addition to being a kick ass knitter.  As for myself, I’m stumbling through new dance steps and enjoying every moment.  And yes, I’m going to the Friday social party at the dance studio because a) I don’t want my instructor to yell at me again, and b) it really is good for me to get out of the house (even if I do still prefer to curl up in front of the computer and poke the internets/watch old Murder, She Wrote eps, etc.).

Aside from that, it’s finally Friday.  Halle-frickin’-lujah.

There has once again been much tearing of hair and rending of cloth over another tirade against the evils of fanfiction.  Others have responded much wittier and wiser than I could.  But let me be perfectly clear on one thing, and I speak for Emery on this as well:

I AM A FAN WRITER.

Most writers are.  For a lot of us, the words started coming before we knew what to do with them.  For me, it was Star Wars.  The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, and I was obsessed.  I had to FIX it.  Han couldn’t stay locked in that block forever, not when he’d just told the princess he loved her!  (Sort of.  At thirteen, I found it very romantic.)  So I did.  I wrote the whole first half hour of Return of the Jedi.  I’m not kidding.  It scares me how many of the details I had actually turned up in the movie, right down to Han’s carbonite sickness.  I take it less as a credit to my storytelling skills and chalk it up more to George writing like a thirteen year old girl, which the later series proved out.  But it didn’t matter.  I was writing.

Once the words started coming out, there really was no stopping it.  I did Doctor Who fic and Star Trek fic.  (This was before there was a need for TOS tags.  There *was* only one series.)  I had my first real editing experience on a Remington Steele story I wrote.  Back in those days, if you wrote fanfic and wanted it published, you actually submitted it, dealt with acceptance and rejection letters, and if accepted, went through a full editorial process.  I was fortunate at seventeen to get a good, serious editor who worked with me and taught me a lot, more than any of the creative writing classes I had later.  After three rounds of revision where the manuscript came back soaked in red ink every time, when the finished product finally came out and I held it in my hands, I felt like a real author.

Grad school crushed the creative spirit out of me right when I was trying to make the jump to pro writing.  It was almost ten years before I took up writing again, and again it was for fan writing, this time in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.  And again, I learned a lot from the process.  It was through Buffy that I met Emery, and for both of us it was in the Buffyverse that we began developing as erotic romance writers.  Giles/Ethan fic was the first M/M I ever enjoyed, because the ship made sense to me, unlike others in other fandoms that seemed forced on the characters.  And by exploring those kinds of relationships, ones that were realistic and complicated and less than fairy tale, I started developing my own voice for writing characters like David and Carver and Peter and Graham and even Diana, bless her inconvenient boobage.

Most writing advice gives the first and foremost advice for a learning writer is to WRITE.  Write anything.  Write blog posts, write letters, write grocery lists, WRITE ANYTHING.  And that includes fan fiction.  It’s easy to write what you love, and that makes it easier to write when it’s hard.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Ashes to Ashes fic to work on.

Started off the week sort of right by doing revisions on the third Creatures of Sin book, hoping that it might inspire writing by rediscovering characters and a story I love.  Nope.  Still love everything about that world that Grey and I created, but nothing new came to life.  Stupid muse.

So Grey and I decided to revisit our fanfic roots a bit and issued mini writing challenges to each other.  Which has sort of stoked the fires of creativity and reminded both of us that, yeah, writing is fun and we do love it.  When writing professionally, it’s so easy to get caught up in all the brouhaha and talk yourself into a corner of no productivity or joy in your craft anymore.  And this is why, time and again, I tell people that I could never do writing for a living.  It’s not that writing isn’t the passion of my life, but I know how I operate.  If my fun becomes work, then I stop doing that.  Hopefully this little back and forth Grey and I have going this week will help both of us reclaim the fun.

In other news, Grey’s gardening bug has sort of bit me.  Last week I visited her in the ‘burbs to help her mix dirt and take some home for myself to try a bit of small scale gardening.  I’m starting simple.  Cat grass for my cat.  Not exciting, and yet…it kind of is.  Wednesday night it was still just a pot of dirt with seeds somewhere in it.  Then I looked last night and there were green spiky things shooting up.  I can make things grow!  Just have to remember to regularly water said growing things so they don’t, you know, die.

And of course, ballroom dance lessons are another bright spot in the week.  I’m gradually picking things up.  I just wish my lower heels would get here.  My high-heels are sexy and danceable, but my toes will be happier when my heels get a little closer to the ground.

Writing is hard.  If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you know that’s too true.  It probably sounds like we’re doing a lot of whining about that, how much we *aren’t* writing.  Trust me, we hate that as much as you probably (hopefully?) do.  But just because we aren’t writing doesn’t mean we aren’t trying to write.  And sometimes that’s enough.  Emery’s Lazy-Ass Writing Goal is on hold, as even that small amount of writing has been generating more dread than inspiration.  The first rule of writing is that no matter how hard it is, when it starts making you nauseous, stop.  Forcing it is a good way to kill the love.

Our attempts at the moment are more about refilling the tanks rather than putting words on paper.  In the course of writing, you tend to forget that you need to feed your muse/imagination/what have you.  New experiences, new words fill you up and convert into the energy to write.  So that’s where we’re at.  Emery has started taking dance lessons, and brings home wonderful stories of her Russian teacher, Nodari and seems to be developing a joy in her body again.  I am gardening.  Getting my hands dirty and making something else grow is healing, reconnecting me with the physical world when I spend so much time in the mental.  I had a surprise guest in the garden last night, a little baby rabbit hiding behind my tomato bed, which just reinforced that growing veggies is a good thing.  Next weekend is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which I’m looking forward to.  Lots of pretty yarns and a chance I might bring home some new family friends.  I’ve been thinking about rabbits for a long time.  Now might be the time.

Growing, making, nurturing.  It may seem like avoidance, but it all feeds the creative spirit until we’re ready to grow more stories.

I finally got sick of not writing this week and decide it was high time to force myself back into the habit.  But I wanted to keep the pressure low.  Instead of aiming for my normal daily goal of 1000 words, I nudged it down to a more reasonable 100.  Even on a horrible, uninspired day I know I can string a measly hundred words together.  I’ll admit that on some days that small amount can be every bit as impossible seeming as 10,000 words.  Still, you have to start somewhere.

The first week has gone pretty good, but first week usually does with my “new” writing regimens.  As does the second week, mostly, though that’s where it tends to fall apart and my procrastination, slacking self rears her vicious head.  I do think, however, that with such a tiny daily goal I might stand a chance of sticking with this.  Ha ha ha ha ha.

It’s also spurred Grey into action on her solo stuff.  She wrote an opening that has me salivating for more.  As she so frequently does with me, I keep pestering her for the rest of the book now.  All’s fair after all.

Hopefully with the Lazy Ass Writing Goal (LAWG, for short, and no hyphen as I am lazy), will help us get our confidence back and be able to tackle our languishing but promising WIPs.