Little of This, Little of That, or: What's This Post Gonna Be About, Anyway?

The first thing I wanted to blog about was inspired by a post a couple weeks ago- what was my personal NA time like? I thought and thought. I went to beauty school straight out of high school. A year later, licensed to color, I was working in a dying little salon in the burbs. I moved in with a girl I barely knew, lived on spaghetti and Miller Lite, and was too broke to do much besides watch Degrassi on her cable and hang out with my hot mess of a boyfriend.

I moved back in with my mom at the end of the year. Not much worth blogging about there.

Then I was going to write about writing. I write slow, slow, slow. I have 3 WIP's at current, and naturally that's right when I got a Shiny New Idea. Just before NaNo, was it meant to be? But that's kind of boring too.

Tonight as I'm writing this, I've just spent the past 2 days immersed, really IMMERSED in a trio of books. They're all different, but all creepy psychological thrillers. The Night Strangers, by Chris Bojahlion (sp?), The Never List by Koethie Jan (sp?), and Night Film by Marisha Pessl (spelled right). Does this happen to you guys to, where everything you pick up coincidently has a theme? 

Besides the creepy creepy thing, all of these books also have in common that can't-stop-won't-stop feeling to them. Every single page forces me on to the next. 

I'm not going to suddenly add ghosts, or murders, or mysteries or serial killers to my books. But I am going back through everything I've been writing and asking, "Will this drive the story forward so forcefully that you couldn't hit the brakes even if you wanted?"

It's a difficult thing to do, plot-wise, if you're writing romance/erotica. After all, your readers WANT the ending to be predictable. But when I look at why I can't stop reading, while I'm cooking, working, canceling plans to get another chapter in, it isn't necessarily the plot that's the cause.

It's the characters. They are so damaged, so raw, and so driven that they pull me along for their ride unbidden. It's inspiring, and fun. What can I do to my characters to make you care that deeply? I'm coming up with a million ideas. 

Back to the writing (and reading) cave!

Xoxo,

Lucy