Brittany Maresh

writer

I was working on my amazing WIP featuring a haunting, lamenting that I didn’t need to take a break to do some research, when I had the urge to dig out all my old Goose Bumps and Fear Street books. For research purposes, or to re-inspire myself, or some such.

And then the Mary Downing Hahn ghost stories, because when I was little those were darn scary, oh, and STONEWORDS by Pam Conrad, which was never scary but a sort of sad ghost story.

And I realized that I’d pretty much been doing all the research I needed for this book, my entire life.

Somehow, that makes me feel a lot better about the story I’m working on.

Happy Nightmares!

Brittany Maresh

Over on Rath & Ruins we were discussing character flaws–specifically, what our favorite character’s biggest flaws were. How did these relate to each of us, individually? Why were these flaws important? What made them stick with us?

Many of us chose people we identified with. Characters of a certain type that spoke to our own faults, be it overemotional reactions, easily hurt feelings, or lack of courage. These faults become the character’s strengths, or something to be overcome. If we can overcome our faults alongside a book character, does it make us feel like we’ve accomplished something, too?

Is that why we like dynamic characters the most? Because we grow and change with them, as we read?

-Brittany Maresh

Even before the movies came out, Draco Malfoy was one of those characters that people split two ways on — love or hate. He was a foil to Harry Potter–even though they were the same age, their upbringing was polar opposites. He was rich instead of poor. Pureblood instead of mixed. Raised with magic instead of as a muggle. Light hair instead of dark. And he chose to go to Slytherin, gladly, instead of to beg his way into Gryffendor. There was all this potential there, and people loved it. Or hated it, if they were solid with Harry.

It wasn’t that Tom Felton was hot (though that plays a huge part in it now, I believe), it was that he was such a 2-D character compared to everyone else that people were forced to believe that somewhere in there, he had to have some depth. They could see the potential that J.K. Rowling couldn’t show since I have decided to believe that it was Harry’s prejudices and not her own that muddled our perspective of the Slytherins.

I think a lot of controversial characters work like that. People like them because there’s just enough there that they can see the potential, and not enough there that they have to if they don’t want to.

-Brittany Maresh

Today I saw the cover for Rachel Caine’s second Outcast Season book, Unknown. (I love Rachel Caine). There’s a blond girl in black on a sportsbike on the cover.  She’s nothing like Alexis—high heels? And no helmet? And blond?—but it evoked New Rochester so strongly that I was stopped dead on my Forever Fifteen progress, possibly for the whole night.

I went to my webpage (oh, that’s here!) to consider updating it, since Forever Fifteen wasn’t going well, and I saw the fall colors, and what little non-New Rochester thoughts were left disappeared. It would be winter in the city just now, and their holiday seasons are spectacular. I was daydreaming but still intent on doing something other than writing a New Rochester holiday short, and then Alexis’s song came up on the radio.  I won’t say which song, beyond it being Linkin Park, though, for fear of being laughed off the internet.

To get to the point, a New Rochester Holiday Short is in the works. I don’t know what will become of it, but if you ask nicely, it might go up on my website as a holiday gift for you all.

I guess holidays are home time, and for me, that includes New Rochester.

Sincerely,

Brittany Maresh

Something about a strong and young female narrator requires female vocalists. I’m not quite sure why that should be true, but in this particular case it is.

Sometimes a strong playlist can keep the picture of the novel as a whole more clearly in mind for those of us who are gifted with the ability to write without complete silence, and I think it’s almost a necessary tool for anyone who can take advantage of it.

Of course, if you happen upon me and I’m listening to the Anastasia soundtrack, that explains it all.

-Brittany Maresh

I’m that girl who had unicorn wallpaper in middle school, and didn’t realize the idea of dragons was beyond ridiculous until… well, I still haven’t realized it, yet. Nonetheless, I don’t typically write that kind of fantasy. I kind of stick towards the darker end of things. You know, horror and the likes?

Well, today I’ve written two chapters in a new book–yes, another one. What do you expect me to do between books, learn to knit?

This new book (Untitled Princess) is a lot younger sort of style than what I’ve been doing, and a lot more up beat, in a lot of ways. It’s a big change from my NaNo book, to be sure.

The playlist for this is way peppier than I’ve ever liked, but it works, and I’m enjoying it. It has a lot more female vocalists.

We’ll see how it turns out, but right now, I’m shockingly in to it.

-Brittany Maresh

I’m beginning to see a trend in writing: unless you draw a very clear line stating “there is no romantic entanglement,” the readers will consider it a possibility.  If you draw the line too firmly, however, it will be assumed that there will be romantic entanglements, later, and that the firm line is pretense.

I’m really not at all sure what to do with this, since I don’t normally do relationships in my work, as a general rule.  E-mail me if you have an awesome insight to share that will make this less like beating my head against a brick wall.

-Brittany Maresh

What makes my online writing group so awesome?  None of us know each other, very few of us have ever or will ever meet one another, and yet, so often, we’re still all right on the same page.

If I’ve heard of an agent, so often, one of them has, too, or they want to hear about it and get a link to their blog, website, twitter, and so on.  We follow the same general circle of interest–agent blogs, writer blogs, similar websites, writing events, contests, read books along the same vein, so on and so forth.

And (here’s a big and) I trust their opinion.  If I hear from three or four of them about something particular, it tends to be true.  I can trust them to say “your vocabular is entirely too weird” or “these characters are beyond wooden, they’re like faded chalk outlines left on the pavement.

Yeah, they’re all pretty awesome.

-Brittany Maresh

Working hard on my current novel the night before a writing group meeting, I had the sudden thought that writing groups were as much a guilt-driven motivation as they are a support-driven motivation.

In this particular case, I have fifteen good chapters in a novel and have for months.  I also have another seventeen not so good ones.  I’ve needed to edit those last seventeen for a while, and until it hit me that my writing group is waiting for them, I had no reason to work on them.

Actually, I’ve kind of been avoiding thinking about them, because they are frighteningly messy.

NaNoWriMo was my excuse not to, but honestly? I think a factor of fear is there.  I’m afraid to fix these chapters, because I’m not sure I can fix them.  And if I don’t fix them, I have to rewrite them.  And if I have to rewrite them, maybe I will make them better, maybe I won’t.

And the idea of not being able to close this story, just leaving it hanging for the rest of my life?  That about terrifies me.

So I’m glad I have writing groups.  Three of them, now, I think.  If I didn’t have them, maybe I’d never work up the courage to make myself finish this.

Then again, sometimes fear can create as much courage as peer pressure.

I don’t know which is more of a motivator, right now, but I’ve started working on it again.  Seventeen chapters.   Circa 40,000 words.  And I’m not going to let them beat me.

-Brittany Maresh

I’m fighting back my Evil Tendencies (yes, I do have them) and not talking about NaNoWriMo, this time. I’d love to gush about being behind on my word count goal (which is not 50,000 words), or to lament about the quality, but I won’t.

I’m not ashamed to be behind on my goal–the goal was a challenge, and I set it unreasonably high on purpose.  The quality of the writing is not top-notch, but some scenes are downright moving.  First drafts are like that, like geodes, in today’s comparison, because I’ve got a geode in the scene I’m writing.

We’ll see how the story turns up–if it’s something I can polish and shine and work into something that’s ready to be queried.  Maybe it’s just a pretty flash, and all my hard work will make fool’s gold.  Maybe not.  That’s for future worries.

Today, I’m just marveling at the process of writing as a group.  It’s strange, and in a way entirely comforting.  You’re surrounded by three other people on laptops–and one with a notebook, usually, and another who has an envy-inspiring typewriter.  You’re all focused inward, on your own stories.  And maybe you IM each other (we do, at least), and maybe all writing stops as someone slaps their forehead.  Until I saw it earlier today, I didn’t really think it was one of those things people really did, while writing, but lo and behold, it is.  Discussion goes for a few minutes, working out a plot kink, discussing a character trait, contemplating the flash point of human beings, and then work resumes.

It’s less lonely, and less daring, but every once in a while, it’s a nice break from the isolated process we usually undergo.  At least, I think it is. But what do I know?  I don’t write a synopsis ahead of time, and I couldn’t outline to save my life.  At least, not beforehand.

-Brittany Maresh, attempting to procrastinate and finding a measure of success