The Korean Fan Dance

The Korean Fan Dance is my favorite of all their dances. It’s not only beautiful in its steps but it creates the gorgeous scenes within nature that can be seen in Korea. This dance originated in the Chosen Period, about 600 years ago.

These are pictures I took when a Korean middle school group came to dance for our students. This school is special in that all the kids who go there have a focus in art.

Can you figure out which scenes these girls are creating?

My WIP Needs a Name

So my paranormal romance needs a title. I'm not ready to spill the beans on the plot yet, although I'm totally psyched over it, I've been brainstorming ideas.

But the problem is I'm terrible at coming up with good titles. Then I went on NaNoWriMo and they had a link for Title-o-Matic that generates random titles for you. I got a kick out of it, but no title yet.

Some halarious titles it picked for me:

• Requiem Coughing
• Sepia Languid
• Gold-Flake Blurple
• White Sea Pearl
• Star Tomato

Maybe you'd like to play too? Click here.

Winter Wonderland in Downtown Seoul

This weekend we finally made it to see the lights of downtown Seoul. We strolled along the river that has been recently restored while listening to Korean singers along the way. It was a cold, chilly night but the colors and excitement in the air made it all worth while.

Wanted: Surival Tips for the Obsessive Writer

Fast drafting has left me little time to do anything but write like a madwoman. I'm so into this novel, I forget about everything else.

My son was asking for pants to wear, my husband has been scrounging the refrigerator for food, and the cat stares bleakly at her empty food bowl (thank goodness I don't have a cat that meows incessantly). Oh! And I almost forgot. I'm supposed to actually go to work because I have a job!

(FYI, don't visit without a giving me enough time to stash the dirty dishes in the bathtub and toss the piles of toys under the beds.)

I've been thinking of ways to make my life easier and ideas to give me more time to appease this writing obsession.

My list so far:

1. TV- instant babysitting but also guilt

2. Fast food- except its too difficult to get here in Korea

3. No sleep, chocolate and extra doses of caffeine- effective so far

4. Pretending laundry is a fun game and cross my fingers my three year old thinks so too

5. Yeah, that's about it.

Love to hear your ideas of survival tips for the writing maniac!

Inner Conflict- Tear Up Your Characters

One focus in my current WIP is creating inner conflict in my characters. I decided to pull out some of my favorite novels to see what those characters had to go through.

Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer- Bella is in love with both Jake and Edward. She cannot love both, Werewolves and Vampires aren’t exactly buddies. She must choose.
Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Gemma wants to bring the magic into her world but she knows she can’t control it.
Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier. Reason must either except the magic within herself which her mother has taught her is evil or go insane.
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr- Aislinn is madly in love with Seth but she is destined to become the fairey queen.
Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle- Percy is torn. She thinks she’s put a love spell on the guy she’s madly in love with. Should she accept his love even if it’s not real or push him away?

It’s the PULL. In all these novels, the MC is pulled in two directions, both possible, but both with inner conflict. I’m trying to build this inner conflict in my characters and I’ve been pleased with the results so far.

In Donald Maas’s book Writing the Breakout Novel, he asks these questions: (Paraphrased)
1. What does your character want more than anything?
2. What is the exact opposite of that?
3. How can you blend these to make your MC desire both?

Tear your characters up. Send them through an internal roller coaster. Put them through inner pain as well as external. After all, no pain, no gain.

Fast Drafting in 2009!

2009 is here and I’m jumping right into one of my goals—finish a YA novel. I hooked up with a fabulous and motivated group where we email each other our daily numbers. Having a core group to bounce ideas off of and encourage each other makes the process slightly less painful. At least you know that there are others as crazy as you out there.

For my last book I made a sketch of an outline, which kept me focused and helped on those days where I wanted to just stare at my computer.

But for this novel, I went a step further. First I used this template to keep my story focused. I also took each character and created a web for them with all their favorites, needs, desires, motivations, and such. Jenny Myers has a fantastic character questionnaire that I used too, which got me asking some tricky questions.

Finally, I read Donald Maass How to Write a Breakout Novel, which by the way is excellent. Everything he had to say was spot on but what I liked best about his book were the examples he gave. It brought the concepts he wrote about to life. I also got the workbook that goes along with the book and I’ve been using that as well.

So, with all these tools, I’m ready to start writing! Better head back to my novel and start FAST DRAFTING!

Success in 2009!

It’s that time again. Time to make New Year Goals. I went back and looked at my goals that I made last year and interestingly enough, I achieved nearly everything on the list except for two. When I showed the list to my husband, he pointed out that the two that I didn’t achieve were out of my hands. They weren’t my decision to be made but someone else’s.

He’s right! Goals made should be within our own power to make them happen. My critique partner, Beth Revis, talks about this on her blog too.

So this year, I’ve made my goals to be achievable only by me.

Here they are!
1. Finish revisions of my MG and tween novels.
2. Write and revise a YA novel.
3. Take a writing class.
4. Submit magazine articles from my travels to the Carus group and Highlights.
5. Blog and contribute to the writing community.

6. Read, read, read