I’ve gotten back on track with Frostbite, and I’m able to overview the plot in my head and pick out the parts that still need polishing, which is a huge step forward. It would help if I’d sit down and finish up the revisions I started, but…

I’ve been distracted by a new version of Deathlock. Through all my revisions I’ve had Alternate Story B, a non-fantasy love story, that’s haunted me as a short story I could do with Deathlock’s main characters after Deathlock Proper is published. But Deathlock Proper just wasn’t coming together at all even with four full versions. And it finally hit me — take Alternate Story B and make it Deathlock Proper — by adding the trappings of the fantasy world and the special circumstances of the characters.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense, the more the story came alive in my head. The female lead no longer seemed weak and boring, the action no longer seemed contrived.  And, oddly enough, I’ve been more interested in writing Alternate Story B than Deathlock Proper from the beginning, which means now I get to write the story I wanted to all along.

I’m crossing my fingers but not getting my hopes up.

Oh, wait, there they went. They’re up. *sigh*

The first time I ever shaved my legs, I did it dry.

I was in high school, either a freshman or sophomore, and too embarrassed to tell my mom that I thought my legs should be a little less hairy. So I got one of my dad’s orange plastic safety razors from the packet of backups, tucked it neatly into my shorts pocket and took it to my room, where I proceeded to try to shave my legs without water or soap.

Naturally, it hurt, because that’s what happens when you drag a razor across dry hair (it pulls), but it worked reasonably well, and I decided to try and get hold of some shaving creme next time — the guest bathroom had an old, crusty, almost-used canister hanging out that nobody had touched for months, since my mom never throws anything useful away.

Then my dad came in to ask me something, and I shoved the razor under my bed and looked at him with what I hoped was an innocent expression.

He took one look at my face, folded his arms, and demanded to see what I’d just put under the bed.

Horribly embarrassed, I pulled out that silly little orange safety razor and showed it to him. Of all the things a teenager could have hidden under her bed from her father, I doubt that was anywhere on his list, especially since he almost smiled and said, “Oh. Okay.”

A few days later, though I never mentioned the incident to anyone, my mom pulled me aside for some shaving tips.

Several months ago, I asked you to help me get my favorite writer reprinted by sending in letters.

I’m not sure how many people were influenced to do it by me, but the goal has been acheived!!! Woohoo!

I stumbled across the author’s website yesterday (I’d checked before, so it must be fairly new) and the Night World series is being reprinted along with the final book, which the LJ Smith fan community has been waiting for for about 10 years. (Yes, you Robert Jordan and Harry Potter fans, take THAT! I’ve been waiting MUCH longer than any of you had to. Nyah nyah!! *makes taunting faces because she won the “I’ve been waiting longest” competition*)

Anyway, this is insanely awesome, and you should go preorder at least the first book from Amazon. The publisher has collected the first three books into one and the next three books into a second.

Night World No 1: Secret Vampire, Daughters of Darkness, Spellbinder
Night World No 2: Dark Angel, The Chosen, Soulmate

If you want to keep up with what other books are being re-released, the author’s site is ljanesmith.net.

So, after discussing things with Alex and Chris (and visiting an interesting site called tvtropes.org, which analyzes every kind of character type and plot trope imaginable), I decided that the female lead in Deathlock is turning out to be a Scrappy or, worse, a Wesley:

A Wesley is created when the writers (or sometimes only one of them) have become attached to a specific character, so they begin writing him/her into more and more of the scripts, giving them more to do, and sometimes making them the proxy voice of the author, all while blithely ignoring the simple truth that they’re the only ones that love their character, because the fans absolutely … hate this character.

Technically, you can’t have a Wesley or Scrappy without fans, but I think I’ve studied enough of what my favorite writers did wrong to realize when I’m treading dangerous waters with a mismatched couple.

You can’t give a powerful guy a useless girlfriend.

*sigh*

So… Deathlock take five, anyone?

I’m going to take my own advice and start working on the overarching plot of the series. It needs to go somewhere, everyone needs a spot, I definitely need to work out who’s going to do what, and it’ll be clearer if I have a good outline.

>_> Now where are those blank notecards?

Still pretty tired of dealing with Frostbite but getting close to willing to edit again. Instead, I’ve been working on Deathlock. Basically all of my free time is spent trying to decide where to go with Deathlock and how the story should play out.

Deathlock is on its fourth incarnation, meaning I wrote almost the entire story last year and threw it completely out. Then I started two other versions, hated them, and started this version, which I might not hate. I think I’ve finally found a few things in the story worth keeping, but I need to settle plot details and… they just aren’t settling at the moment.

I need to do more prep work before actually starting to write. >_> I always get caught by not having enough plot to go with my characters, and I have to go back and do the prep work I should have done in the first place.

I have no idea how I managed to finish Frostbite without it looking like a trained monkey just banged his head on my keyboard.