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Monday, April 27, 2009

Wild Childe

Happy Monday Everyone!

Congratulations to Sherrie Hansen! Remember to send your info to Margay at Margay1122@gmail.com to claim your copy of Nora's Soul!

Yes, today may be Monday but it's a wonderful day for me as I have recently confirmed that I have graduated, which means I'm done with school, for now. All that's left to do is concentrate on my writing. After having recently judged a writing contest, I decided that my goal would be to enter a contest by the end of the year or at about this time next year. That means I need to get to work. The question is, where do I start?

During my last semester of college, I needed to write roughly 20 pages for one class and 20 for another. We could complete the assignment a little at a time or in one big chuck. Because I wanted to get all my writing done at one time, I decided to do all my writing in one big chunk. For class number 1, I wasn't sure at first what I would write, but then I thought this group would make good test subjects for something I had written previously (with pen and paper). So, I began to type the story into a WORD document. Well, what started out as a simple, short British mystery/crime story, morphed itself something else entirely.

I still had a British mystery/crime story, but with very big twists. For one, the story takes place on a planet on the other side of the known universe. While this planet can sustain life and the early colonists brought and planted seeds from earth, the make-up of the planet alters things quite a bit. Citrus trees (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, etc.) were planted and the trees appeared to grow normally, but when the fruit started to grow, the colonists noticed that each of different citrus trees began to grow the same fruit. It didn't just happen to the citrus fruits it happened to all of the fruits and vegetables the colonists brought with them. Like fruits blended with each other to produce one fruit, like vegetables blended to produce one vegetable. What was unusual about these fruits and vegetables is that they exhibited the characteristics of each of the fruits they came from. Yes, a strange phenomenon, but one they had to accept because no matter how far away they were planted, the same thing would occur, again and again. They would later discover that the ground of the planet connected like things together to establish some sort of harmony and balance and even though they started off with multiple plants, they ended up with one connected root system.

Yes, this complicated mess began to take over my thoughts, but it didn't stop there. For class number 2, I went to my idea pool and decided to use an idea that I came up with years earlier but sat in a "box" to be used on a rainy day. The idea was so different that I thought it would offer a nice balance between the two stories. That was, of course, until I began writing. Before long, this second story tied itself to the one for class number 1 (which was still untitled at this point) in more ways than one. At first, they were tied only because of the planet. As I rewrote and revised the pages of the story for class 2, however, the main character of story 1 and the main character for story 2 revealed that they were related. Talk about a frustrating and confusing mess!

Because this world seems to be growing bigger and bigger, more and more stuff needed to be identified and explained, so much so that my head began to need a break from it to recharge. Okay, so I pulled out story number 3, one I had started long before the semester began. However, as I began to reread it, it appears that even that one had ties, however unintentional, to this fictional planet.

It was mid-semester and this planet needed a name, so I called it Centurion 54. Now, the planet is real to me and so are the lives of the characters I have written about and those I have yet to write about.

Yay! I have a planet with an undetermined amount of history. I should be happy right? Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for this whole world I'm discovering, but I'm finding it a bit troublesome too.

No matter what kind of storyline I come up with, when I go to write it and map it out, somewhere along the way it always ties itself to this world. Is this just destined to happen until I finish telling the stories, or will every story I now write come from the people of Centurion 54?

My greatest fear is that this planet will somehow find a way to absorb another story that I wrote over two years (and haven't finished because the computer it was on died and I only had it on hard copy). I love the character from this particular story and want to keep him separate from my planet world, but I'm not sure if that will be possible since there are several years of history unaccounted for on this planet.

How can I prevent this world I have given birth to from tying itself to every new story I write? Any hints or should I just not worry about it and see what happens?

Carrie

9 Moonbeams (comments):

Molly Daniels said...

Carrie, my dear...you now have a series!

Sometimes the worlds we create end up permeating our lives...I began writing an erotic romance last year and characters from my Arbor U series ended up being discussed as 'school friends'! How weird is that?

Molly Daniels said...

(Head slap) Congrats Sherree:) Darn...my ploy didn't work Saturday (pouting, lol!)

Carrie said...

Thanks Molly, for not letting me feel so alone!

Molly won the Golden Smoochie today!

Who will win the Cookie Kiss?

Gracen Miller said...

*laughs at Carrie and hugs you tight* I am soooo in the boat with you and I agree with Molly, you've got a series started whether you want it or not. LOL Look the voices in my head don't let me pick and chose what I do to them, they tell me and I listen or pay the consequences. Let me explain.

I began writing a story a couple of years ago and about halfway through I couldn't create the zest for it anymore, couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go, but I had a basic concept that they tied into a bigger picture...a much bigger picture. So, I pushed the story aside and started on another story, which I did finish btw. I am in the process of writing a synopsis for it to sub. But, when I went back to the first story, imagine my surprise when I realized the heroine of that first story was the sister of the heroine in the second story. Imagine my even great surprise to realize that the sister from the second story was actually book 1 and the sister from the first story that was uncompleted is actually book 2! A series started, with characters created from book 2, which is now book 1, that will develope into stories of their own. Confusing, I know, but it's the way they wrote themselves. And now, book 1, which is now book 2, is in the process of being finished. *crosses fingers* I hope! LOL You never know with my fickle muse.

Personally, my advice, don't fight your muse because YOU will NEVER win! The muse does. :D Or at least mine always wins, I'm just a hostage that follows the dictates of my muse. ;-) It's the best problem I have ever suffered from.

Carrie said...

Yeah, I knew I had a series, but I didn't expect it to eat up every story I create!

Right now, I really have to admire writers who can keep not just one writing world straight, but 2 and 3! (Think of writers the likes of J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts and Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle....)

I knew writing wasn't going to be easy, but I figured that it would be able to keep my one world from eating up all of my other stories. Oh well. It's like Gracen said, "Can't Fight the Muse," oooh, I feel a song parody coming on....

Molly Daniels said...

You do parodies too? I've done some for Release Days...and Totally Tasteless Limricks:)

My muse has been on an extended vacation. I wish she would return; I've got several wips I need to finish.

Carrie said...

Yeah, I do parodies. In fact, I did a parody called Blogging Queen a couple of months ago when Heidi Betts was promoting her new book, Tangled Up In Love. She used it as one of her Friday Funnies....

Now remember, muses need to take vacations too. Okay, now I know that this is the right forum for this short story/Musical I wrote for my Shakespeare class that was incidentally about muses and where they come from. Of course, it didn't want to stay in it's original formatting, but it stayed together long enough for me to get a good grade!

Margay Leah Justice said...

Carrie, congratulations on finishing college! I'm sorry I didn't read this post Monday when I should have but that was the day we went in for the follow-up for my daughter with the ortho doctor and so I bookmarked this for later and then got inundated with email yesterday! Grrr...anyway, I don't think you should fret too much about other stories being swallowed up by this world because it could just be your subconscious telling you the story isn't over yet. Go with it.

This same thing happened to me when I "finished" Nora's Soul. Silly me thought that was the end of the story until Dante started invading my dreams again and telling me more secrets and I realized that Nora was only the beginning. So now I am writing this whole series about Dante and I get this voice in my head saying, "Jude." Softly, at first, then louder each time, until I literally said, "Who the heck is Jude?" Turns out, Jude is the dark angel responsible for making Dante the way he is now - so now I have a whole lot more story than I did a year ago and I have no idea which way it could go, given these two very powerful characters. But rather than panic, I'm throwing them in a room together and seeing what comes of it!

Writing is so delicious.

Margay

Sheila Deeth said...

Sounds fun and exciting. That planet's taking over. Wishing you luck with it.

And Margay--can't wait to read more about Jude.