Late? Who's Late?

            Dum de dum de dum. (Insert painting noise here). Oh my goodness! It’s finished! It’s finally finished! They said it couldn’t be done, but it has! I have successfully proven that a tree WILL make a sound when there’s nobody to hear it! I’ve done research, I’ve done sketches, I’ve even painted this life sized tree, and now I finally have the proof I need! MWAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!! 

(Insert phone noise here)

Hello?

-Louisa? It’s Rayna.

Oh, hi Rayna! You’ll never guess what I just—

-WHERE ARE YOU?

Huh?

-Your last post was in MARCH. Stop watching Fringe and get your act together!

(Dial tone)

            Christopher Columbus! With all the research I’ve been doing I totally forgot about my blog! Sorry Rayna, I guess it just slipped my mind. Well, I’ve got to talk about something, but what? It should be, um, thought provoking but funny, smart but sarcastic, and really really awesome. But how? What can I talk about that I haven’t already?

I’ll tell you what I can talk about: tutu-wearing monks playing air guitars.

Okay, I lied. I’m not going to talk about that (though I hope to have a reason to someday) But I am going to talk about books!

(Scattered applause)

Oh come on, you know you love books!

(Mingled noises of half hearted agreement)

… I’ll talk about you guys too.

(Wild applause)

Sigh.

            You know when you’re trying to tell a friend a story, but you forget something so you have to mention that that happened and then go on telling the story. But then you realize it doesn’t make sense and you have to re-explain it, and by the time you’re done your friend looks really confused? Kind of like that sentence I just typed? That’s what it’s like to write a novel. You know you have a great story. In fact, you have an amazing story. But if you can’t say it the right way people are just going to end up annoyed and confused. This is the burden of a writer, trying to make everything fit together in a way that is interesting, fun, and easy to understand. It’s striking that balance between wordiness and action, between Pride and Prejudice and Sin City. On another note, has anyone checked for crossover fan fictions between those two?

            Anyway, this sort of hit home for me as this week I twisted the entire plot of a story that I’ve been working on for years. I’ve had the plot very well outlined in my head and some on the computer, but I realized recently that the first book (It’s a trilogy) is really boring. You know the first part of Percy Jackson when he arrives at camp and learns how everything works there? That was basically the first book. So I changed the plot of the first book to bring evil scientists that were previously unseen into the foreground. Also they make these kids with super powers battle each other, an idea that probably sprung from my recent reading of Ender’s game.

            This brings me to a crucial thing about writing; it’s always changing. Something I always tell myself when I’m stuck on an idea is that I am the god of this world. If I wanted to make a group of vegetarian T-Rexes burst into a retirement home and eat their way through all the buffet tables and fake plants, those retired folks better watch out. If something needs to happen, I can make something happen. I can change the entire setting and mood of my trilogy in one day, even though I’ve been thinking about it one way forever. There’s only one thing I have trouble changing, and that’s names.

           

            See, as an author I grow attached to my characters. These characters especially since I’ve been working on them for so long, so when I realized that many of my character’s names ended in –en, I wasn’t going to do a thing about it. That’s why names are very important for me to get right, because I probably won’t be changing them.

            Anyway, I’m sorry for being so late with this and I hope it was at least somewhat interesting.

Rayna, I hope to see you soon!

Louisa

P.S. Did you know that Word doesn’t recognize the word “Blog”?

UPDATE: Checked Fanfiction.net. No Sin City/Pride and Prejudice crossovers yet, but I did find ones with Doctor Who, Bones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men, and Starcraft!