Friday, I had a stomach ache.
By Friday night, it was a migraine.
By midnight, coughing constantly.
I awoke on Saturday, knowing I was sick. Really sick. Slept most of the day.
Sunday, completely useless. Dayquil/Nyquil. Watched videos, because no brain power.
Monday, starting to recover.
I wasn’t in the mood to sit there and watch videos helplessy, going into a 19th straight hour of “Gun. Meme. Reviews.” or any other Brandon Herrera video I hadn’t seen yet, or the “quack, bang, Out” of Fat Electrician, or even “it’s watermelon time!” from Kentucky Ballistics, or even “Here’s 300 Mind Blowing Facts You Never Knew about Star Wars”. I’d watched enough videos while coughing and feeling like my every muscle was trying to liquify.
I wanted to work on my novels.
Still waiting for the greenlight on a movie script project, so the novels were it. Started working on Blood, because Moon was already mostly in the bag, but yes, that’s next. If you have a series, you need to make sure there’s consistency out of them.
So, Moon is done except editing and tweaking.
Second Moon is good but… suffers from the Cutesies, and I have to get rid of that.
You know, those scenes where your characters have a snowball fight.
Okay, remember your bottom line: Why is this scene in the novel? Does it advance the story? Does any part of it move you from where you are in your story to where it must end up, ticking off any of the story points you decided it must have?
If no, move it to another Scrivener project.
Second is, werewolves are horrifying. Especially my alter ego, Zev. I’m trying to connect eyewitness accounts of werewolves to my novel, so certain things I have to tick off. Fear projection is described.
If Zev can fear project, and if he can stare into a mirror and see Zev Wolf, then as Great Wolf, not only can he control WHEN he changes (except the full moon), he might be able to trigger the change in another wolf. I’m still iffy on this one, but it’s in Second Moon some three times. Re-writing would be a pain, but I can do it.
Raina’s role as a wolf is explored, and some friction with Zev’s job. The problem with the book is Tiffany.
Tiffany in the first book is revealed as somewhat bubbly personality, the kind who gestures with a fork while eating, sings out loud to her favorite songs if she hears them in shopping malls. Not quite the person my wife had in mind for the character, but writers tend towards stereotypes because your brain grabs onto them and won’t let go, because the story is unfolding and I don’t have time for that!
Cutesies are terminal to a werewolf story. Every time Tiffy makes some comment about Kirby and his looks, it’s simultaneously cringe and lethal to the seriousness of the book – but it’s got to be, because we’ve already established Tiffy’s personality.
The problem is, now it’s a balancing act. In Moon, the story was grim, between Malenfant killing everyone Zev had interactions with and Zev’s struggle to come to terms with the fact he was now a monster. (Hint – the first time Raina drives him to the park is Halloween).
This story is grim on several levels, but not in the same way, and I let writing the Tiffany and George scenes gain control of the novel, so I had to write several Zev and Raina action scenes to balance.
So what I’m trying to balance is Tiffany’s bubbliness. It literally is too distracting. I’ll have to talk to Tim McKay about it later on today to get his feedback.
And yes, Tim is going to be a character (archetype: keeper of lore) in my zombie novel. but that’s a different point.
Moving on to Blood Moon, the sequel to Blood, we have Michael. He’s literally fought half a dozen master vampires to gain a throne that should have been his from the start. I depicted him carefully as trapped by fate. In this novel, his Vampiric tendencies now guide him. He’s not going through another duel ever again, but he’s going to have unquestioned loyalty from his scheming subjects.
Differences – Vampires are loners. They have interactions with few humans, preferring only one or two. They get married, and… that’s that.
Werewolves are pack animals. They seek out Alphas, unless they are Alphas themselves.
So I spent all last night working on all this.
