Getting started

Good morning! I feel like there needs to be a manual on managing a writer-blog. Tonight I need to find myself a suitable profile picture, and I think a little customization wouldn't go amiss, either. My tech-savviness does not extend to HTML, sadly, so we'll see what happens with that.

There are plenty of beginnings to go around lately. Yesterday I got some significant work done on a new story - I want to say it's my new big project, but I'm still leaving things open. It's been harder than usual to decide this time around. The querying process is filled with so much uncertainty (and so many mood-swings) that it can be hard to make myself commit to something. It was easier last time, when there was one story idea that was so much more developed than the others. This time, I had several ideas competing with each other. Sometimes I wanted to write them all, and sometimes I was sure that none of them were good enough.

But the thing about getting started is that my brain doesn't really start firing until I get going on something. Once I start writing, things start clicking into place faster than I can keep track. And I hit a point yesterday where everything was suddenly so much easier, all because I started to write a scene involving the core group.

I've been told that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they choose, so I guess it makes sense that my characters only start making sense when I delve into their relationships. On my last project, I actually took a trio of supporting characters and turned them into the protagonists just because I loved their group dynamic so much. The same goes for most of my other projects, really: the story only took off when I realized who was important to the protagonist and why. It gives me so much to work with in terms of the characters' personalities and interactions, which fills in so many blanks for me.

What about you guys? Is there an element that's important for you to understand before you really dive in?

Welcome!

After months of promising myself that I'm going to make an author blog "one of these days," I decided to give myself a kick and go for it. And here I am!

So, introduction time! My name is Becky. I'm a native New Englander, but at this point I've lived up and down the East Coast. Though I'm an administrative assistant by day, by night I defend the streets of Gotham as the caped crusader, Batman. And when there are no innocents to defend, I generally like to write.

I am also a huge nerd. But you probably guessed that already.

I write YA, and my poisons of choice are fantasy, mystery, and horror. The project I am currently querying incorporates all three. But I'm open to try any genre, as long as I can make it creepy! My taste in reading generally falls along those lines as well. If you can give me a chill, I'm yours.

Where non-writing matters are concerned, there are three topics that can get me going for hours: food, fashion, and animated movies. I lived in Tokyo for half a year, and I am proficient in Japanese. Also, my brain is basically IMDB, but I will try to keep the movie references to a minimum. (I can't really promise how successful I'll be.)

So what will I use this blog for? Hopefully a little of everything! Babbling about the writing process, book recommendations, things I've learned from the query process so far, and maybe some random posts about Pixar or the Dread Pirate Roberts - who knows? But I can promise you that this is a drama-free zone. There's enough stress in the writing world without me adding to it.

And there you have it! Now, I'm off to think of a topic for my first real post. Hope to see you there!